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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 47899
   :PG.Title: The Forbidden Way
   :PG.Released: 2015-01-06
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: George Gibbs
   :DC.Title: The Forbidden Way
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1911
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

=================
THE FORBIDDEN WAY
=================

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   .. _`As she sat before her mirror...`:

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      :alt: As she sat before her mirror...

      As she sat before her mirror...

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      THE
      FORBIDDEN WAY

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      BY

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      GEORGE GIBBS

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      AUTHOR OF
      THE BOLTED DOOR, ETC.

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      ILLUSTRATED

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      NEW YORK
      GROSSET & DUNLAP
      PUBLISHERS

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      Copyright, 1911, BY
      D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
      Copyright, 1911, by Associated Sunday Magazines, Incorporated.

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      *Published September, 1911*

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      Printed in the United States of America

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAPTER

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I.  `Sharp Practice`_
II.  `Camilla`_
III.  `New York`_
IV.  `The Forbidden Way`_
V.  `Diners Out`_
VI.  `Mrs. Cheyne`_
VII.  `Braebank`_
VIII.  `The Brush`_
IX.  `The Shadow`_
X.  `Triton of the Minnows`_
XI.  `Discord`_
XII.  `Tea Cups and Music`_
XIII.  `Good Fishing`_
XIV.  `Father and Son`_
XV.  `Infatuation`_
XVI.  `Old Dangers`_
XVII.  `Old Rose Leaves`_
XVIII.  `Combat`_
XIX.  `The Lady in Gray`_
XX.  `*La Femme Propose*`_
XXI.  `*L'Homme Dispose*`_
XXII.  `Private Matters`_
XXIII.  `The Intruder`_
XXIV.  `Gretchen Decides`_
XXV.  `The Crisis`_
XXVI.  `The Call of the Heart`_
XXVII.  `General Bent`_
XXVIII.  `Household Gods—and Goddesses`_





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.. _`SHARP PRACTICE`:

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   THE FORBIDDEN WAY

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   CHAPTER I

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   SHARP PRACTICE

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The young man in the swivel chair drummed
with his toes against the desk, while he
studied the gaudy fire insurance calendar
on the wall before him.  His pipe hung bowl
downward from his lips, and the long fingers of one
hand toyed with a legal document in his lap.

"Something new is hatching in this incubator,"
he muttered at last, dipping his pen in the ink
bottle again.  "And I think—I *think* it's an ugly
duckling.  Of course, it's no business of mine,
but——"  He looked up suddenly as a bulky figure
darkened the doorway.  "Hello, Jeff!"

Jeff Wray nodded and walked to the water cooler.

"Mulrennan's been here to see you three times,"
said the man in the swivel chair.  "Each time he's
been getting madder.  I wish you'd keep your
appointments or get another office-boy.  That
man's vocabulary is a work of genius.  Even you,
in your happiest humors—why, what's the matter
with your face?"

Wray put his fingers up.  Four red streaks ran
parallel across his cheek bone.  He touched the
marks with his hand, then looked at his finger tips.

"Oh, that?  Seems like I must have butted into
something."  He gave a short, unmirthful laugh.
"Don't make me look any prettier, does it?  Funny
I didn't feel it before."  And then, as he turned to
the inner office, "Is Mulrennan coming back?"
he asked.

"Yes, at five."

Wray glanced at the clock.  "Has Bent been in?"

"No."

"When will those papers be ready?"

"To-night, if you want them."

"Good!"  Wray turned, with his hand on the
knob of the door.  "When Pete comes, send him
back.  Will you, Larry?"

Larry Berkely nodded, and Wray went into the
back office and closed the door behind him.  He
took out his keys and unlocked the desk, but,
instead of sitting at once, he went over to a cracked
mirror in the corner and examined his face, grinning
at his image and touching the red marks with his
fingers.

"That was a love-tap for fair," he said.  "I
reckon I deserved it.  But she oughtn't to push a
man too far.  She was sure angry.  Won't speak
now for a while."  He turned with a confident air.
"She'll come around, though," he laughed.  "You
just bet she will."  Then he sat down at his desk,
took a photograph in a brass frame out of the drawer,
put it up against the pen-rack before him, and,
folding his arms across the blotter, gazed at it
steadily for a moment.

"It was a mean trick, wasn't it, Camilla girl?"
he muttered, half aloud.  "I'm sorry.  But you've
got to learn who you belong to.  There can't be
any fooling of other fellows around Jeff Wray's
girl.  I just had to kiss you—had to put my seal
on you, Camilla.  I reckon you put yours on me,
too, black and blue."  He laughed ruefully.  "You'll
forgive me, though.  A diamond necklace or so will
square *that*.  You bet it will!"

He put the picture down, hid it away, and took
up some papers that lay before him.  But when,
a while later, Larry Berkely showed Mulrennan
in, they found him sitting with his face to the
window, looking out with his baby stare over the
hundred thousand acres of the Hermosa Company.

"Come in, Pete, and shut the door.  You don't
mind, Larry?  Mulrennan and I have got some
private business."  Then, when the door was closed,
he said in a half-whisper, "Well?  What did you
find out about the 'Lone Tree'?"

Mr. Mulrennan carefully sought the cuspidor,
then wiped his brow with a dirty red handkerchief.
"What didn't I find out?  God, Jeff! that mine's
lousy with sylvanite.  The watchman was asleep,
and we got in scrumpshus-like.  It's half way
down that short winze they made last fall.  Max
had put some timbers up to hide it, and we pulled
'em down.  We only had matches to strike and
couldn't see much, but what we saw was a-plenty.
It's the vein, all right.  Holy Mother! but it started
my mouth to watherin'—I haven't had a wink
of shlape.  Where in h—l have you been all day?"

"Business," said Jeff vaguely, "in the mountains."

"It's no time to be potherin' about wid little
matthers."  Mulrennan brought his huge fist down
on the table.  "You've got to nail this deal, Jeff,
to-day."

"To-day?  Bent hasn't been back."

"Well, you've got to find him—now."

"What for?  See here, Pete, cool down.  Can't
you see if I go after him he'll get suspicious—and
then good-bye to everything.  You leave this deal
to me.  He'll sign.  Larry's drawing the lease and
bond now.  Maybe to-morrow——"

"To-morrow?  To-morrow will be too late.  That's
what I'm gettin' at.  Max is ugly——"

Wray clenched his bony fingers over the chair
arm and leaned across the desk.

"Max!" he whispered angrily.  "What——?"

"He's afther more money.  He talked pretty big
last night, but this mornin'——"  He broke off
breathlessly.  "Oh, I've had the h—l of a day——"

"What did he say?"

"He's talkin' of goin' to the mine owner.  He
says, after all, Cort Bent never harmed him any,
and it's only a matter of who gives him the most."

Wray got to his feet and took two or three rapid
turns up and down the room.

"D—n him!" he muttered.  And then suddenly,
"Where is he now?"

"Up the bar playing pinochle with Fritz."

"Are you sure?"

"He was twenty minutes ago.  I haven't left
him a minute except to come here.  Fritz is losin'
money to him.  I told him to.  That will kape him
for a while."

But Wray had already taken up his hat.  "Come,
let's go up there.  We've got to shut his mouth
some way," he said, through set lips.

"I've been promisin' myself sick, but he's a sharp
one—God!  But I wish them papers was signed,"
sighed Mulrennan.

As they passed through the office Jeff stopped a
moment.

"If Bent comes in, Larry, tell him I'll be back
in half an hour.  Understand?  Don't seem anxious.
Just tell him I'm going to Denver and want to settle
that deal one way or another as soon as possible."

Berkely nodded and watched the strange pair
as they made their way up the street.  Wray, his
head down and hands in his pockets, and the
Irishman using his arms in violent gestures.

"I'm *sure* it's an ugly duckling," commented
the sage.

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It was three years now since Berkely had come to
Colorado for his health, and two since Fate had sent
him drifting down to Mesa City and Jeff Wray.
Mesa City was a "boom" town.  Three years ago,
when the "Jack Pot" mine was opened, it had become
the sudden proud possessor of five hotels (and
saloons), three "general" stores, four barber shops,
three pool rooms, a livery stable, and post office.
Its main (and only) street was a quarter of a mile
in length, and the plains for a half mile in every
direction had been dotted with the camps of the
settlers.  It had almost seemed as if Saguache
County had found another Cripple Creek.

A time passed, and then Mesa City awoke one
morning to find that the gamblers, the speculators,
and the sporting men (and women) had gone forth
to other fields, and left it to its fate, and the town
knew that it was a failure.

But Jeff Wray stayed on.  And when Berkely
came, he stayed, too, partly because the place
seemed to improve his health, but more largely on
account of Jeff Wray.  What was it that had drawn
him so compellingly toward the man?  He liked
him—why, he could not say—but he did—and
that was the end of it.  There was a directness in
the way Wray went after what he wanted which
approached nothing Berkely could think of so much
as the unhesitating self-sufficiency of a child.  He
seemed to have an intuition for the right thing, and,
though he often did the wrong one, Berkely was
aware that he did it open-eyed and that no book
wisdom or refinement would have made the slightest
difference in the consummation of his plans.  Berkely
was sure, as Wray was sure, that the only reason Jeff
hadn't succeeded was because opportunity hadn't yet
come knocking at his door.  He liked Wray because
he was bold and strong, because he looked him in
the eye, because he gave a sense of large areas,
because his impulses, bad as well as good, were generous
and big, like the mountains and plains of which he
was a part.  His schemes showed flashes of genius,
but neither of them had money enough to put them
into practice.  He was always figuring in hundreds
of thousands or even in millions, and at times it
seemed to Berkely as though he was frittering his
life away over small problems when he might have
been mastering big ones.  At others he seemed
very like Mulberry Sellers, Munchausen, and
D'Artagnan all rolled into one.

What was happening now, Berkely could not
determine, so he gave up the problem and, when
his work was done, filled his pipe, strolled to the
door, and watched the changing colors on the
mountains to the east of him, as the sun, sinking lower,
found some clouds and sent their shadows scurrying
along the range to the southward.  With his eye
he followed the line of the trail up the cañon, and
far up above the cottonwoods that skirted the town
he could see two figures on horseback coming down.
He recognized them at once, even at that distance,
for they were a sight to which Mesa City had
become accustomed.

"Camilla and Bent," he muttered.  "I'm glad
Jeff's not here.  It's been getting on his nerves.
I hope if Bent sells out he'll hunt a new field.  There
are too few women around here—too few like
Camilla.  I wonder if she really cares.  I wonder——"

He stopped, his eyes contracted to pin points.
The pair on the horses had halted, and the man
had drawn close to his companion, leaning forward.
Was he fixing her saddle?  An unconscious exclamation
came from Berkely's lips.

"He's got his nerve—right in plain view of the
town, too.  What——?"

The girl's horse suddenly drew ahead and came
galloping down through the scrub-oak, the man
following.  Berkely smiled.  "The race isn't always
to the swift, Cort Bent," he muttered.

At the head of the street he saw Miss Irwin's
horse turn in at the livery stable where she kept
him, but Cortland Bent's came straight on at an
easy canter and halted at Berkely's door.

"Is Wray there?" asked Bent.

"No, but he told me to ask you to wait.  Won't
you come in?"

"Just tell him I'll be in in the morning."

"Jeff may go to Denver to-morrow," said Larry,
"but of course there's no hurry——"

Bent took out a silver cigarette case and offered
it to Berkely.  "See here, Larry," he said, "what the
devil do you fellows want with the 'Lone Tree'?
Are you going to work it, or are you getting it for
some one else?  Of course, it's none of my
business—but I'd like to know, just——"

"Oh, I'm not in this.  This is Jeff's deal.  I don't
know much about it, but I think he'd probably
work it for a while."

Together they walked into the office, and Berkely
spread some papers out over the desk.  "Jeff told
me to draw these up.  I think you'll find everything
properly stated."

Bent nodded.  "Humph!  He feels pretty certain
I'll sign, doesn't he?"

Berkely stood beside him, smoking and leaning
over his shoulder, but didn't reply.

Bent laughed.  "Well, it's all cut and dried.
Seems a pity to have put *you* to so much trouble,
Larry.  I haven't made up my mind.  They say
twice as much money goes into gold mines
as ever comes out of 'em.  I guess it's true.
If it wasn't for Jeff Wray in this deal I'd sign
that paper in a minute.  But I've always had an
idea that some day he'd make his pile, and I
don't relish the idea of his making it on me.
He's a visionary—a fanatic on the gold in
these mountains, but fortune has a way of favoring
the fool——"

"Sounds as though you might be talking about
me," said a voice from the doorway, where Jeff
stood smiling, his broad figure completely blocking
the entrance.

Bent turned, confused, but recovered himself with
a short laugh.  "Yes, I was," he replied slowly.
"I've put twenty thousand dollars in that hole in
the rocks, and I hate to leave it."

Jeff Wray wiped his brow, went to the cooler,
drew a glass of water, and slowly drank it.

"Well, my friend," he said carelessly between
swallows, "there's still time to back down.  You're
not committed to anything.  Neither am I.  Suit
yourself.  I'm going to get a mine or so.  But I'm
not particular which one.  The 'Daisy' looks good
to me, but they want too much for it.  The terms
on your mine, the 'Lone Tree,' just about suited
me—that's all.  It's not a 'big' proposition.
It might pan thirty or forty to the ton, but there's
not much in that—not away up there.  Take my
offer—or leave it, Bent.  I don't give a d—n."

He tossed his hat on the chair, took off his coat,
and opened the door of the back office.

"Larry," he added, "you needn't bother to stay,
I've got some writing to do.  I'll lock up when I go."

If Mr. Mulrennan had been present he would
have lost his senses in sheer admiration or sheer
dismay.  Berkely remembered that "bluff" later,
when he learned how much had depended on its
success.

But it worked beautifully.

"Oh, well," said Bent peevishly, "let's get it
over.  I'll sign.  Are you ready to make a settlement?"





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.. _`CAMILLA`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   CAMILLA

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Her pupils had all been dismissed for the day
and the schoolmistress sat at her desk,
a half-written letter before her, gazing out
through the open doorway over the squalid roofs
of the "residence section" of Mesa City.  The
"Watch Us Grow" sign on the false front over
Jeff Wray's office was just visible over the flat roof
of the brick bank building.  "Watch Us Grow!"  The
shadow in her eyes deepened.  For two long years
she had seen that sign from doorway and window
of the school, and, even when she went home to
Mrs. Brennan's bungalow up above, she must see
it again from the veranda.  Jeff's business card
was the most prominent object in town, except
perhaps Jeff himself.  It was so much larger than
it had any right to be, out of scale, so vulgar, so
insistent, so—so like Jeff.  Jeff had stood in the
doorway of the schoolhouse while they were building
his office, and, in his masterful way, had told
her of the trade-mark he had adopted for his business;
he wanted it in plain sight of her desk so that
she could see it every day and watch Mesa City
(and himself) fulfil the prophecy.

That seemed ages ago now.  It was before the
"Jeff Wray" had been painted out and "Wray and
Berkely" put in its place, before Larry came out,
or Cortland Bent, in the days when Jeff was a new
kind of animal to her, when she had arrived fresh
from her boarding school in Kansas.  "Watch Us
Grow!"  How could any one grow in a place like
this—grow anything, at least, but wrinkled and
stale and ugly.  The sign had been a continual
mockery to her, a travesty on the deeper possibilities
of life which Fate had so far denied her.  She shut
her eyes and resolutely turned her head away, but
she could not get Jeff Wray out of her mind.  She
was thoroughly frightened.  His air of proprietorship
so suddenly assumed yesterday and the brutality
of his kiss had brought her own feelings to a
crisis—for she had learned in that moment that their
relationship was impossible.  But her fingers tingled
still—at the memory of the blow she had given
him.  She *had* promised to marry him when he
"made good."  But in Mesa City that had seemed
like no promise at all.  How could any one succeed
in anything here?

She leaned forward on the desk and buried her
face in her hands.  What chance had she?  Where
was the fairy prince who would rescue her from her
hut and broth kettle?

She raised her head at the sound of a voice and
saw Cortland Bent's broad shoulders at the open
window.

"Morning!" he said, cheerfully.  "You look like
Ariadne deserted.  May I come in?"

She nodded assent, and, thrusting her school
books and unfinished letter in the desk, turned the
key viciously in its lock.

"Aren't you riding to-day?" he asked from the doorway.

"No."

He came forward, sat on the top of one of the small
desks facing her, and examined her at his ease.

"You're peevish—no?  What?"

"Yes.  I'm in a frightful mood.  You'd better
not stay."

He only laughed up at the sunflower dangling
from the water pitcher.  "Oh, I don't mind.  I've
a heavenly disposition."

"How do you show it?" she broke in impetuously.
"Every man thinks the one way to get on with a
woman is to make love to her——"

"No—not altogether," he reproached her.  "You
and I have had other topics, you know—Swinburne
and Shakespeare and the musical glasses."

"Oh, yes, but you always drifted back again."

"How can you blame me?  If I've made love to
you, it was——"

"Oh, I know.  I'm a rustic, and it's a good game."

"You're the least rustic person I've ever known,"
he said seriously.  "It's not a game.  I can't think
of it as a game.  It is something more serious than
that."  He took a few paces up and down the aisle
before her and then went on.

"I know you've never been willing to give me
credit for anything I've said when I've tried to show
you how much you were to me—and yet, I think
you cared—you've showed it sometimes.  But
I've tried to go about my work and forget you,
because I thought it was best for us both.  But I
can't, Camilla, I tell you I can't get you out of my
head.  I think of something else, and then, in a
moment, there you are again—elusive, mocking,
scornful, tender, all in a breath.  And then, when I
find you're there to stay, I don't try any more.
I don't want to think of anything else."  He leaned
across the desk and seized one of her hands with
an ardor which took her by storm.  "You've got
into my blood like wine, Camilla.  To be near you
means to reach forward and take you—the sound
of your voice, the response of your eyes, the appeal
of your mind to mine in this wilderness of
spirit—I can't deny them—I don't want to deny them."

Her head sank, but she withdrew her hands.
"And my sanity?" she asked clearly.  "That does
not appeal to you."

"Perhaps it does—most of all.  It maddens
me, too—that I can't make you care for me enough
to forget yourself."

She looked up at him, smiling gently now.  "It
is easy to say forget myself, that *you* may have one
more frail woman to remember.  Am I so provincial,
Cortland Bent?  Am I really so rustic?  Two days
ago you were telling me I had all the *savoir faire*
of the great lady."

He did not reply to that, but, while she watched
him, he got up and walked slowly over to the map
of the United States which hung between the windows.

"I don't suppose it will mean anything to you
when I tell you I'm going," he said bitterly.

"Going—where?"

"East."

"For long?"

"For good.  I've leased the mine."

She started up from her chair, breathless, and
stood poised on the edge of the platform, the slender
fingers of one hand grasping the projecting edge of
the desk.

"You're—going—East to—to stay?"

He did not turn, and, if he noticed any change
in her intonation, he gave no sign of it.

"I've finished here.  The mine is leased.  I'm
going back to New York."

"I can't believe—you never told me.  It's
curious you shouldn't have said something before."

"Why should I?  No man likes to admit that
he's a failure."

"You've leased the 'Lone Tree'?  To whom?"

"To Wray.  He made me a proposition yesterday.
I've accepted it.  In fact, I'm out of the thing
altogether."

"Jeff?  I don't understand.  Why, only yesterday he——"

Was it loyalty to Jeff that made her pause?  He
turned quickly.

"What—did he say anything?"

"Oh, nothing—only that the mine was a failure.
That seems curious if he had decided to lease it."

"Oh!" he said smiling, "it's only Wray's way
of doing business.  When anything is hanging fire
he always says exactly what he doesn't mean.
He doesn't worry me.  I've gone over that hole
with a fine-tooth comb, and I'm glad to get out of it."

"And out of Mesa City?"  Then, with an attempt
at carelessness, "Of course we'll all miss
you," she said dully.

"Don't!  You mustn't speak to me in that way.
I've always been pretty decent to you.  You've
never believed in me, but that's because you've
never believed in any man.  I've tried to show you
how differently I felt——"

"By kissing me?" she mocked scornfully.

Bent changed his tone.  "See here, Camilla,"
he said, "I'm not in a mood to be trifled with.  I
can't go away from here and leave you in this
God-forsaken hole.  There isn't a person here fit
for you to associate with.  It will drive you mad
in another year.  Do you ever try to picture what
your future out here is going to be?"

"Haven't I?" bitterly.

"You've seen them out on the ranches, haven't
you?  Slabsided, gingham scarecrows in
sunbonnets, brown and wrinkled like dried peaches,
moving all day from kitchen to bedroom, from
bedroom to barn, and back again——"

"Yes, yes," said Camilla, her head in her hands.
"I've seen them."

"Without one thought in life but the successes
of their husbands—the hay crop, the price of
cattle; without other diversion than the visit to
Kinney, the new hat and frock once a year (a year
behind the fashion); their only companions
women like themselves, with the same tastes, the
same thoughts, the same habits——"

"O God!" whispered the girl, laying a restraining
hand on his arm, "don't go on!  I can't stand it."

He clasped her hands in both of his own.

"Don't you see it's impossible?" he whispered.
"You weren't made for that kind of thing.  Your
bloom would fade like theirs, only sooner because
of your fineness.  You'd never grow like those
women, because it isn't in you to be ugly.  But
you'd fade early."

"Yes," she said, "I know it."

"You can't stay.  I know, just as you know, that
you were never meant for a life like that—you
weren't meant for a life like this.  Do you care what
becomes of these kids?  No matter how much
chance you give them to get up in the world, they'll
seek their own level in the end."

"No, I can't stay here."  She repeated the phrase
mechanically, her gaze afar.

"I've watched you, Camilla.  I know.  For all
your warm blood, you're no hardy plant to be
nourished in a soil like this.  You need
environment, culture, the sun of flattery, of
wealth—without them you'll wither——"

"And die.  Yes, I will.  I could not stand this
much longer.  Perhaps it would be better to die than
to become the dull, sodden things these women are."

"Listen, Camilla," he said madly.  He put his
arms around her, his pulses leaping at the contact
of her body.  Her figure drooped away from him,
but he felt the pressure of her warm fingers in his,
and saw the veins throbbing at her throat and
temples, and he knew that at last she was awakened.
"You must come with me to the East.  I won't
go without you.  I want you.  I want to see you
among people of your own sort.  I'll be good to
you—so gentle, so kind that you'll soon forget
that there ever was such a place as this."

His tenderness overpowered her, and she felt
herself yielding to the warmth of his entreaty.  "Do
you really need me so much?" she asked brokenly.

His reply was to draw her closer to him and to
raise her lips to his.  But she turned her head and
would not let him kiss her.  Perhaps through her
mind passed the memory of that other kiss only
yesterday.

"No, I'm afraid."

"Of me?  Why?"

"Of myself.  Life is so terrible—so full of
meaning.  I'm afraid—yes, afraid of you, too.
Somewhere deep in me I have a conscience.  To-day you
appeal to me.  You have put things so clearly—things
I have thought but have never dared speak
of.  To-day you seem to be the only solution of
my troubles——"

"Let me solve them then."

"Wait.  To-day you almost seem to be the only
man in the world—almost, but not quite.  I'm
not sure of you—nor sure of myself.  You point
a way to freedom from this—perhaps a worse
slavery would await me there.  Suppose I married
you——"

"Don't marry me then," he broke in wildly.
"What is marriage?  A word for a social obligation
which no one denies.  But why insist on it?  The
real obligation is a moral one and needs no rites
to make it binding.  I love you.  What does it
matter whether——"

His meaning dawned on her slowly, and she turned
in his arms, her eyes widening with bewilderment
as she looked as though fascinated by the horror
she read in his words.  He felt her body straighten
in his arms and saw that the blood had gone from
her face.

"Do I startle you?  Don't look so strangely.
You are the only woman in the world.  I am mad
about you.  You know that?  Can't you see?  Look
up at me, Camilla.  There's a girl in the East they
want me to marry—of an old line with money—but
I swear I'll never marry her.  Never!"

Slowly she disengaged his arms and put the chair
between them.  There was even a smile on her lips.
"You mean—that I—that you——"  She
paused, uncertain of her words.

"That I'll stick to you until Kingdom Come,"
he assented.

Her laugh echoed harshly in the bare room.
"Whether you marry the other girl or not?"

"I'll never marry the other girl," he said savagely,
"never see her again if you say so——"

He took a step toward her, but she held up her
hand as though warding off a blow.

"One moment," she said, a calm taking the place
of her forced gayety, her voice ringing with a deep
note of scorn.  "I didn't understand at first.
Back here in the valley we're a little dull.  We
learn to speak well or ill as we think.  At least,
we learn to be honest with ourselves, and we try to
be honest with others.  We do not speak fair words
and lie in our hearts.  Our men have a rougher
bark than yours, but they're sound and strong
inside."  She drew herself to her full height.  "A
woman is safe in this country—with the men
of this country, Mr. Bent.  It is only when——"

"Camilla!  Forgive me.  I was only trying you.
I will do whatever you say—I——"

She walked to the door rapidly, then paused
uncertainly, leaning against the door-jamb and
looking down the street.

"Will you go?" she murmured.

"I can't—not yet."

"You must—at once.  Jeff Wray is coming here—now!"

"What have I to do with him?"

"Nothing—only if he guesses what you've been
saying to me, I won't answer for him.  That's all."

Bent looked up with a quick smile, and then sat
on the nearest desk.  "I suppose I ought to be
frightened.  What?  Jeff is a kind of a 'bad man,'
isn't he?  But I can't go now, Camilla.  Wouldn't
be the sporting thing, you know.  I think I'll stay.
Do you mind if I smoke?"

She watched the approaching figure of Jeff for
a moment irresolutely and then turned indoors.
"Of course, I can't *make* you go," she said, "but I
have always understood that when a woman
expressed a wish to be alone, it was the custom of
gentlemen——"

"You made my going impossible," he said coolly.
"Don't forget that.  I'll go after a while, but I
won't run.  You've got something to tell Jeff
Wray.  I prefer to be here when you do it."

"I didn't say I'd tell him," she put in quickly.
"I'm not going to tell him.  Now will you go?"

"No."

He sat on a desk, swinging one long leg to and
fro and looking out of the open door, at which the
figure of Jeff presently appeared.  The newcomer
took off his hat and shuffled in uneasily, but his wide
stare and a nod to Bent showed neither surprise
nor ill-humor.  Indeed, his expression gave every
sign of unusual content.  He spoke to Bent, then
gazed dubiously toward the teacher's desk, where
Camilla, apparently absorbed in her letter, looked
up with a fine air of abstraction, nodded, and then
went on with her writing.

"Looks sort of coolish around here," said Jeff.
"Hope I haven't butted into an Experience Meeting
or anything."  He laughed, but Bent only examined
the ash of his cigarette and smiled.  "I thought,
Camilla," he went on, "maybe you'd like to take
a ride——"

Miss Irwin looked up.  She knew every modulation
of Jeff's voice.  His tone was quiet—as it
had been yesterday—but in it was the same note
of command—or was it triumph?  She glanced
at Cortland Bent.

"I'm not riding to-day," she said quietly.

"Not with Bent, either?  That's funny.  What
will people think around here?  We've sort of got
used to the idea of seeing you two out together—kind
of part of the afternoon scenery, so to speak.
Nothing wrong, is there?"

Bent flushed with anger, and Camilla marveled
at this new manifestation of Jeff's instinct.  It
almost seemed as though he knew what had happened
between them as well as though she had told
him.  Jeff laughed softly and looked from one to
the other with his mildest stare, as though
delighted at the discovery.

Miss Irwin rose and put her letter in the drawer
of the desk.  "I wish you'd go—both of you,"
she said quietly.  But Wray had made himself
comfortable in a chair and showed no disposition
to move.

"I thought you might like to ride out to the
'Lone Tree,'" he said.  "You know Mr. Bent has
leased it to me?"

"Yes, he told me."

"What else did he tell you?"

"Oh, I say, Wray," Bent broke in, "I don't see
how that can be any affair of yours."

Jeff Wray wrapped his quirt around one knee and
smiled indulgently.  "Doesn't seem so, does it,
Bent?" he said coolly.  "But it really is.  You
see, Camilla—Miss Irwin—and I have been
friends a long time—as a matter of fact, we're
sort of engaged——"

"Jeff!" gasped the girl.  The calmness of his
effrontery almost, if not quite, deprived her of
speech.  "Even if it were true, you must see that
it can hardly interest——"

"I thought that he might like to know.  I haven't
interfered much between you two, but I've been
thinking about you some.  I thought it might be
just as well that Mr. Bent understood before he
went away."

Camilla started up, stammered, began to speak,
then sank in her chair again.  Bent looked coolly
from one to the other.

"There seems to be a slight difference of opinion,"
he said.

"Oh, we're engaged all right," Jeff went on.
"That's why I thought I'd better tell you it wouldn't
be any use for you to try to persuade Camilla—that
is, Miss Irwin—to go to New York with you."

Jeff made this surprising statement with the
same ease with which he might have dissuaded a
client in an unprofitable deal.  Miss Irwin became
a shade paler, Bent a shade darker.  Such intuition
was rather too precise to be pleasant.  Neither of
them replied.  Bent, because he feared to trust
himself to speak—Camilla, because her tongue
refused obedience.

"Oh, I'm a pretty good guesser.  Camilla told
you she wasn't going, didn't she?  I thought so.
You see, that wouldn't have done at all, because
I'd have had to go all the way East to bring her
back again.  When we're married of course——"

"Jeff!"  The girl's voice, found at last, echoed so
shrilly in the bare room that even Wray was startled
into silence.  He had not seemed aware of any
indelicacy in his revelation, but each moment added
to the bitterness of Miss Irwin's awakening.  Bent's
indignity had made her hate herself and despise
the man who had offered it.  She thought she saw
what kind of wood had been hidden under his
handsome veneer—she had always known what Jeff
was made of.  The fibre was there, tough, strong,
and ugly as ever, but it was not rotten.  And in
that hour she learned a new definition of chivalry.

"Jeff, will you be quiet?"  But she went over to
him and put her hand on his shoulder, and her words
came slowly and very distinctly, as she looked
over Wray's head into Cortland Bent's eyes.  "What
Mr. Wray says is true.  I intend to marry him when
he asks me to."

Bent bowed his head, as Jeff rose, the girl's hand
in his.

"I reckon that about winds up all your loose ends
around Mesa, don't it, Bent?" said Jeff
cheerfully.  "When are you leaving town?"

.. _`"'I reckon that about winds up all your loose ends around Mesa,' said Jeff cheerfully."`:

.. figure:: images/img-024.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'I reckon that about winds up all your loose ends around Mesa,' said Jeff cheerfully."

   "'I reckon that about winds up all your loose ends around Mesa,' said Jeff cheerfully."

But Bent by this time had taken up his cap, and
was gone.





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.. _`NEW YORK`:

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   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   NEW YORK

.. vspace:: 2

Wonderful things happened in the year
which followed.  The "Lone Tree" was
a bonanza.  Every month added to the
value of the discovery.  The incredulous came, saw,
and were conquered, and Mesa City was a "boom
town" again.  Jeff Wray hadn't a great deal to
say in those days.  His brain was working overtime
upon the great interlocking scheme of financial
enterprises which was to make him one of the
richest men in the West.  He spoke little, but his face
wore a smile that never came off, and his baby-blue
stare was more vacuous than ever.

And yet, as month followed month and the
things happened which he had so long predicted for
himself and for the town, something of his old
arrogance slipped away from him.  If balked
ambition and injured pride had made him boast before,
it was success that tamed him.  There was no time
to swagger.  Weighty problems gave him an air
of seriousness which lent him a dignity he had never
possessed.  And if sometimes he blustered now,
people listened.  There was a difference.

As the time for her wedding approached, for the
first time in her life Camilla felt the personality of
the man.  Why was it that she could not love him?
Since that hour at the schoolhouse when Cortland
Bent had shown her how near—and how fearful—could
be the spiritual relation between a woman
and a man, life had taken a different meaning to her.

Jeff's was a curious courtship.  He made love to
her bunglingly, and she realized that his diffidence
was the expression of a kind of rustic humility which
set her in a shrine at which he distantly worshipped.
He seemed most like the Jeff of other days when he
was talking of himself, and she allowed him to do
this by the hour, listening, questioning, and
encouraging.  If this was to make the most of her life,
perhaps it might be as well to get used to the idea.
She could not deny that she was interested.  Jeff's
schemes seemed like a page out of a fairy book,
and, whether she would or not, she went along
with him.  There seemed no limit to his invention,
and there was little doubt in his mind, or, indeed,
in hers, that the world was to be made to provide
very generously for them both.

It was on the eve of their wedding day that Jeff
first spoke of his childhood.

"I suppose you know, Camilla, I never had a
father.  That is," he corrected, "not one to brag
about.  My mother was a waitress in the Frontier
Hotel at Fort Dodge.  She died when I was born.
That's my family tree.  You knew it, I guess, but
I thought maybe you'd like to change your mind."

He looked away from her.  The words came
slowly, and there was a note of heaviness in his
voice.  She realized how hard it was for him to
speak of these things, and put her hand confidently
in his.

"Yes, I knew," she said softly.  "But I never
weighed *that* against you, Jeff.  It only makes me
prouder of what you have become."  And then,
after a pause, "Did you never hear anything about
him?"

"There were some letters written before I was
born.  I'll show them to you some day.  He was
from New York, that's all I know.  Maybe you
can guess now why I didn't like Cort Bent."

Camilla withdrew her hands from his and buried
her face in them, while Wray sat gloomily gazing
at the opposite wall.  In a moment she raised her
head, her cheeks burning.

"Yes, I understand now," she muttered.  "He
was not worth bothering about."

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



And now they were at the hotel in New York,
where Jeff had come on business.  The Empire
drawing room overlooked Fifth Avenue and the
cross street.  There was a reception room in the
French style, a dining room in English oak, a library
(Flemish), smoking room (Turkish), a hall (Dutch),
and a number of bedrooms, each a reproduction of
a celebrated historical apartment.  The wall hangings
were of silk, the curtains of heavy brocade, the
pictures poor copies of excellent old masters, the rugs
costly; and the fixtures in Camilla's bathroom
were of solid silver.

Camilla stood before the cheval glass in her
dressing room (Recamier) trying on, with the
assistance of her maid and a modiste, a fetching
hat and afternoon costume.  Chairs, tables, and
the bed in her own sleeping room were covered with
miscellaneous finery.

When the women had gone, Camilla dropped
into a chair in the drawing room.  There was
something about the made-to-order magnificence which
oppressed her with its emptiness.  Everything that
money could buy was hers for the asking.  Her
husband was going to be fabulously wealthy—every
month since they had been married had developed
new possibilities.  His foresight was extraordinary,
and his luck had become a by-word in the West.
Each of his new ventures had attracted a large
following, and money had flowed into the coffers
of the company.  It was difficult for her to realize
all that happened in the wonderful period since she
had sat at her humble desk in the schoolhouse
at Mesa City.  She was not sure what it was that
she lacked, for she and Jeff got along admirably,
but the room in which she sat seemed to be one
expression of it—a room to be possessed but not
enjoyed.  Their good fortune was so brief that
it had no perspective.  Life had no personality.
It was made of Things, like the articles in
this drawing room, each one agreeably harmonious
with the other, but devoid of associations,
pleasant or unpleasant.  The only difference
between this room and the parlor at Mrs. Brennan's
was that the furniture of the hotel had cost
more money.

To tell the truth, Camilla was horribly bored.
She had proposed to spend the mornings, when Jeff
was downtown, in the agreeable task of providing
herself with a suitable wardrobe.  But she found
that the time hung heavily on her hands.  The
wives of Jeff's business associates in New York
had not yet called.  Perhaps they never would call.
Everything here spoke of wealth, and the entrance
of a new millionaire upon the scene was not such
a rare occurrence as to excite unusual comment.
She peered out up the avenue at the endless tide
of wealth and fashion which passed her by, and she
felt very dreary and isolated, like a vacant house
from which old tenants had departed and into which
new ones would not enter.

She was in this mood when a servant entered.
She had reached the point when even this interruption
was welcome, but when she saw that the man
bore a card tray her interest revived, and she
took up the bit of pasteboard with a short sigh of
relief.  She looked at it, turned it over in her
fingers, her blood slowing a little, then rushing hotly
to her temples.

Cortland Bent!  She let the card fall on the table
beside her.

"Tell him that I am not——" she paused and
glanced out of the window.  The quick impulse
was gone.  "Tell him—to come up," she finished.

When the page disappeared she glanced about
the room, then hurried to the door to recall him,
but he had turned the corner into the corridor
outside, and the message was on its way to a
lower floor.

She paused, irresolute, then went in again, closing
the outside door behind her.  What had she done?
A message of welcome to Cortland Bent, the one
person in the world she had promised herself she
should never see again; her husband's enemy, her
own because he was her husband's; her own, too,
because he had given her pride a wound from which
it had not yet recovered!  What should she do?
She moved toward the door leading to her
dressing room—to pause again.

What did it matter after all?  Jeff wouldn't
care.  She laughed.  Why should he?  He could
afford to be generous with the man who had lost
the fortune he now possessed.  He had, too, an
implicit confidence in her own judgment, and never
since they had been married had he questioned an
action or motive of hers.  As for herself—that was
another matter.  She tossed her head and looked
at herself in her mirror.  Should she not even
welcome the opportunity to show Bent how small
a place he now held in her memory?  The mirror
told her she was handsome, but she still lingered
before it, arranging her hair, when her visitor was
announced.

He stood with his hands behind his back studying
the portrait over the fireplace, turning at the sound
of her voice.

"It's very nice of you to see me," he said slowly.
"How long have you been here?"

"A few weeks only.  Won't you sit down?"

A warm color had come to her checks as she
realized that he was carefully scrutinizing her from
head to heel.

"Of course we're very much honored——" she began.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you," he
broke in warmly.  "I was tempted to write you a
dozen times, but your engagement and marriage
to Wray and"—he paused—"the trouble about
the mine seemed to make it difficult, somehow."

"I'm sure my husband bears you no ill-will."

He gave a short laugh.  "There's no reason why
he should.  There's nothing for *him* to be upset
about.  He got the fortune that should—which
might have been mine—to say nothing of the
girl——"

"Perhaps we had better leave the girl out of it,"
she put in calmly.  "Even time hasn't explained
*that* misunderstanding."

He shrugged a shoulder expressively.  "As you
please.  I'll not parade any ghosts if I can help it.
I'm too happy to see you.  You're more wonderful
than ever.  Really I don't believe I should have
known you.  You're changed somehow.  I wonder
what it is?"

"Prosperity?" she suggested.

"I'm not sure I feel at home with you.  You're
so matured, so—so punctilious and modish."

"You wouldn't have me wear a short skirt and
a sombrero?" she said with a slow smile.

"No, no.  It is not what you wear so much as
what you are.  You are really the great lady.  I
think I knew it there in the West."

She glanced around the room.

"This?" she queried.  "This was Jeff's idea."
And then, as the possible disloyalty occurred to
her, "You know I would much have preferred a
quieter place.  Fine feathers don't always make
fine birds."

"But fine birds can be no less fine whatever they
wear."  There was a pause, and then he asked:

"How long will you be here?"

"All winter, I think.  My husband has business
in New York."

"Yes, I know.  Mesa City can spare him best
at this season."

Bent took up an ivory paper cutter from the
table and sat turning it over in his fingers.  "I
hope—I really hope we may be friends, Mrs. Wray.
I think perhaps if you'll let me I can be of service
to you here.  I don't think that there is a chance
that I can forget your husband's getting the 'Lone
Tree' away from me.  It's pretty hard to have a
success like that at the tips of one's fingers and not
be able to grasp it.  I've been pretty sick about it,
and the governor threatened to disown me.  But
he seems to have taken a fancy to your husband.
I believe that they have some business relations.
The fifty thousand dollars we got in the final
settlement salved his wounds I think.  Your husband
has the law on his side and that's all there is to it.
I'm glad he has it for your sake, though, especially
as it has given me a chance to see you again."

"You're very generous," she said.  "I'm sorry.
It has worried me a great deal."

"Oh, well, let's say no more about it," he said
more cheerfully.  "I'm so glad that you're to be
here.  What do you think of my little burg?  Does
it amuse you at all?  What?  Have you met many
people, or don't you want to meet them?  I'd like
you to know my family—my aunt, Mrs. Rumsen,
especially.  She's a bit of a grenadier, but I know
you'll get along.  She always says what she thinks,
so you mustn't mind.  She's quite the thing here.
Makes out people's lists for them and all that kind
of thing.  Won't you come and dine with the
governor some time?"

"Perhaps it will be time enough when we're
asked——"

"Oh—er—of course.  I forgot.  I'll ask
Gladys—that's my sister—to call at once."

"Please don't trouble."

Try as she might to present an air of indifference,
down in her heart she was secretly delighted at his
candid, friendly attitude.  No other could have
so effectually salved the sudden searing wound he
had once inflicted.  To-day it was difficult to believe
him capable of evil.  He had tried to forget the
past.  Why should not she?  There was another
girl.  Perhaps their engagement had been announced.
She knew she was treading on dangerous ground,
but she ventured to ask him.

"Gretchen?" he replied.  "Oh, Lord, no!  Not
yet.  You see she has some ideas of her own on the
subject, and it takes at least two to make a bargain.
Miss Janney is a fine sport.  Life is a good deal of a
joke with her, as it is to me, but neither of us feels
like carrying it as far as matrimony.  We get on
beautifully.  She's frightfully rich.  I suppose I'll
be, too, some day.  What's the use?  It's a sheer
waste of raw material.  She has a romantic sort
of an idea that she wants a poor man—the sort
of chap she can lift out of a gray atmosphere.  And
I——"  His voice grew suddenly sober.  "You
won't believe that I, too, had the same kind of
notion."

It was some moments before she understood what
he meant, but the silence which followed was
expressive.  He did not choose that she should
misunderstand.

"Yes," he added, "I mean you."

She laughed nervously.  "You didn't ask me to
marry you?"

"No.  But I might have explained why I didn't
if you had given me time.  I don't think I realized
what it meant to me to leave you until I learned
that I had to.  Perhaps it isn't too late to tell
you now."

She was silent, and so he went on.

"I was engaged to be married.  I have been since
I was a boy.  It was a family affair.  Both of us
protested, but my father and hers had set their
hearts on it.  My governor swore he'd cut me off
unless I did as he wished.  And he's not a man to
break his word.  I was afraid of him.  I was weak,
Camilla.  I'm not ashamed to tell you the truth.
I knew unless I made good at the mine that I should
have nothing to offer you.  So I thought if I could
get you to come East, stay for a while, and meet
my father, that time might work out our salvation."

She got up hurriedly and walked to the window.
"I can't see that you can do any good telling me this.
It means so little," she stammered.

"Only to justify myself.  I want to try and make
it possible for you to understand how things were
with me then—how they are now."

"No, no.  It can do no good."

"Let me finish," he said calmly.  "It was the
other girl I was thinking about.  I was still pledged
to her.  I could have written her for my release—but
matters came to a crisis rather suddenly.
And then you told me of your engagement to
Mr. Wray.  You see, after that I didn't care what
happened."  He paused, leaning with one hand
on the table, his head bent.  "Perhaps I ought not
to speak to you in this way now.  But it was on
your own account.  I don't know what I said to
you.  I only remember that I did not ask you to
marry me, but that I wanted you with me always."

His voice sounded very far away to Camilla, like
a message from another life she had lived so long
ago that it seemed almost a message from the dead.
She did not know whether what she most felt was
happiness or misery.  The one thing she was sure
of was that he had no right to be speaking to her
in this way and that she had no right to be listening.
But still she listened.  His words sank almost to
a whisper, but she heard.  "I wanted you to be
with me always.  I knew afterward that I had never
loved any woman but you—God help me—that I
never could love any other woman——"  He stopped
again.  In her corner Camilla was crying softly—tears
of pity for him, for the ashes of their dead.

"Don't, dear," he said gently.  She thought he
was coming forward and raised her head to protest,
but she saw that he still stood by the table,
his back toward her.  She turned one look of
mute appeal, which he did not see, in his direction,
and then rose quickly.

"You must never speak in this way again," she
said, with a surer note.  "Never.  I should not
have listened.  It is my fault.  But I have been
so—so glad to hear that—you didn't mean what
you said.  God knows I forgive you, and I only
hope you can understand—how it was—with
me.  You had been so friendly—so clean.  It
wounded me—horribly.  It made me lose my faith
in all things, and I wanted to keep you—as a
friend."

"I think I may still be a friend."

"I hope so——"  She emerged diffidently and
laid her hand gently on his arm.  "If you want
to be my friend you must forget."

"I'll try.  I *have* tried.  That was easier this
morning than it is this afternoon.  It will be harder
to-night—harder still to-morrow."  He gave a
short laugh and turned away from her toward the
fireplace where he stood, watching the gray embers.

"Oh, people don't die of this sort of thing," he
muttered.

It was almost with an air of unconcern that she
began rearranging the Beauties on the table, speaking
with such a genuine spirit of raillery that he turned
to look at her.

"Oh, it isn't nearly as bad as you think it is.
A man is never quite so madly in love that he can't
forget.  You've been dreaming.  I was different
from the sort of girls you were used to.  You were
in love with the mountains, and mistook me for
background."

"No.  There wasn't any background," he broke
in.  "There was never anything in the picture but
you.  I know.  It's the same now."

"Sh—I must not let you speak to me so.  If
you do, I must go away from New York—or you must."

"You wouldn't care."

She could make no reply to that, and attempted
none.  When the flowers were arranged she sat
on the edge of the table facing him.  "Perhaps it
would be the better way for me to go back to the
West," she said, "but New York is surely big enough
to hold us both without danger of your meeting me
too often.  And I have another idea," her smile
came slowly, with difficulty, "when you see enough
of me in your own city, you will be glad to forget
me whether you want to or not.  Perhaps you may
meet me among your own kind of people—your
own kind of girls, at dinners, or at dances.  You
don't really know me very well, after all.  Wouldn't
it bother you if from sheer awkwardness I spilled my
wine or said 'yes, ma'am,' or 'no, ma'am,' to my
hostess, not because I wanted to, but because I was too
frightened to think of anything else?  Or mistook
the butler for my host?  Or stepped on somebody's
toes in a ballroom.  You know I don't dance very
well.  Suppose——"

"Oh, what's the use, Camilla?" he broke in
angrily.  "You don't deceive anybody.  You know that
kind of thing wouldn't make any difference to me."

"But it might to other people.  You wouldn't
fancy seeing me ridiculous."  He turned to the
fire again, and she perceived that her warning hadn't
merited the dignity of a reply, but her attitude and
the lighter key in which her tone was pitched had
saved the situation.  When he spoke again, all
trace of his discomposure had vanished.

"Oh, I suppose I'll survive.  I've got a name for
nerve of a certain kind, and nobody shall say I ran
away from a woman.  I don't suppose there's any
use of my trying to like your husband.  You see,
I'm frank with you.  But I'll swallow a good deal
to be able to be near you."

There was a silence during which she keenly
searched his face.

"You mustn't dislike Jeff.  I can't permit that.
You can't blame him for being lucky——"

"Lucky?  Yes, I suppose you might call it
luck.  Didn't you know how your husband and
Mulrennan got that mine?"

She rose, her eyes full of a new wonder and
curiosity.

"They leased it.  Everything was legally done,"
she said.

"Oh, yes.  Legally——" he paused.

"Go on—go on."

"What is the use?"

"I must know—everything."

"He never told you?  I think I know why.
Because your code and his are different.  The
consciences of some men are satisfied if they keep their
affairs within the letter of the law.  But there's
a moral law which has nothing to do with the
courts.  He didn't tell you because he knew you
obeyed a different precept."

"What did he do?  Won't you tell me?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FORBIDDEN WAY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE FORBIDDEN WAY

.. vspace:: 2

He came forward and stood facing her, one
hand clutching the back of a chair, his
eyes blazing with newly kindled resentment.
"Yes, I will tell you.  It's right for you to
know.  There was a man in my employ who had a
fancied grievance against my foreman.  He had no
just cause for complaint.  I found that out and
told Harbison to fire him.  If Harbison had obeyed
orders there would have been a different story to
tell about the 'Lone Tree.'  But my foreman took
pity on him because he had a family; then tried to
get him started right again.  The man used to work
extra time at night, sometimes with a shift and
sometimes alone.  And one night in the small gallery at
the hundred-foot level he found the vein we had
been looking for.  He was a German, Max Reimer,
by name——"

"Max Reimer," she repeated mechanically.

"Alone there in that cavern he thought out the
plan which afterward resulted in putting me out of
business.  He quickly got some timbers together
and hid the hole he'd made.  This was easy, for
the steps and railing of the winze needed supports
and planking.  He put in a blast farther over and
hid the gold-bearing rock—all but a few of the
pieces.  These he took out in the pockets of his
overalls and carried them to Jeff Wray——"

"Jeff——"

"Your husband called in Pete Mulrennan, and
they talked it over.  Then one night Pete and Max
crept up to the mine, got past the watchman, and
Max showed Pete what he'd found.  I learned all
this from Harbison after they let Max loose."

"Let him loose?  What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you.  Max wanted a lump sum in cash.
They laughed at him—chiefly because they didn't
have the money to pay.  Then he wanted a
percentage bigger than they wanted to give.  When
they temporized he got ugly, swore he'd rather
run his chances with Harbison and me, but he
never had an opportunity——"

"You don't mean——?" she gasped.

"Wray and Mulrennan lured Reimer to a room
over the saloon and got up a fight; they put him
out, gagged and trussed him like a fowl, and left
him there until Jeff Wray had closed the deal with
me.  That's how your husband got my mine."

"It can't be," she stammered.  "Yes—yes.
And Reimer?"

"They hid him for two weeks, until they brought
to terms."

"I remember," she said, passing her hand over her
brow.  "Reimer's boy was in my school.  They missed
old Max.  They thought he had deserted them.  What
a horrible thing!  And Jeff—my husband——"

"That is what people call Jeff Wray's luck,"
he said, and then added grimly, "and my misfortune."

"But the law?" she said.  "Was there no way
in which you could prove the—the——"

"The fraud?" he said brutally.  "Oh, yes.
The Law!  Do you know who impersonates the
Law in Mesa City?  Pete Mulrennan!  He's judge,
court, and jury.  We had the best lawyer in Denver.
But Lawrence Berkely had done his work too well.
There's a suit still pending, but we haven't a show.
Good God, Camilla! do you mean to say you heard
nothing of all this?"

"Nothing," she said.  "Nothing.  When I heard
of the suit and questioned Jeff he—he said it
was maliciousness, jealousy, disappointment, and I
believed him."

He turned away from her and paced the floor.
"He was right.  It was all of these.  But there was
something else——"

"Oh, I know," she broke in.  "It was what I
am feeling now—the sense of a wrong.  But you
forget——"  She got up and faced him, groping
vaguely for an extenuating circumstance.  "That
sort of thing has been done in the West before.  A
successful mine is all a matter of luck.  Max
Reimer's find might have only been a pocket.  In
that case you would have been the gainer, and Jeff
would have lost."

"That's sophistry.  I can't blame you for
defending your husband.  Mines have been leased
and bought on theory—with a chance to win, a
chance to lose—for the mere love of a gamble.
There was no gamble here.  The gold ore was
there—one had only to look.  There never has
been anything like it since Cripple Creek.  It was
mine.  Jeff Wray wanted it—so he took it—by
force."

She had sunk on the settee between the windows,
her face buried in her hands, and was trying to
think.  All this, the hired magnificence, the empty
show, the damask she was sitting on, the rings on
her hands, her clothing even, belonged by every law
of decency and morality to the man who stood there
before her.  And the wrong she had so long cherished
in her heart against him was as nothing to the injury
her husband had done to him.  She knew nothing
of the law, cared nothing for it.  All she could
think of were the facts of the case as he had presented
them.  Cortland told the truth, she recognized
it in everything he had said, in the ringing note of
his voice, the clear light of his eye, the resentment
of a nature that had been tried too far.  A hundred
forgotten incidents were now remembered—Jeff's
reticence about the law-suit, Max Reimer's
disappearance, the many secret conferences with
Mulrennan.  She wondered that suspicion of Jeff
had never entered her mind before.  She realized
now more poignantly than ever that she had been
moving blindly, supinely, under the spell of a
personality stronger than her own.  She recalled the scene
in the cañon when, beside herself with shame and
mortification, she had struck him in the face and
he had only laughed at her, as he would have laughed
at a rebellious child.  In that moment she had hated
him.  The tolerance that had come later had been
defensive—a defense of her pride.  When Cortland
Bent had left, she had flown like a wounded
swallow to the hawk's nest, glad of any refuge from
the ache at her heart.

She raised her head and sought Bent's eyes with
her own.  A while ago it had seemed so easy to
speak to him.  He had been so gentle with her, and
his reticence had made her own indifference possible.
He had gone back to the dead fire again as though
to find there a phenix of his lost hope, and was
leaning with an elbow on the mantel, his head
bowed in subjection.  He had put his fetters on
again as though to make her understand that his
sharp indictment of her husband had not been
intended to include the woman he loved.  Painfully
she rose and took a step toward him, and,
when she spoke, her voice was low and constrained,
for her thoughts came with difficulty.

"You are right.  There *is* a moral code—a
law of conscience.  In my heart I know that no
matter what other men have done in the West in
their madness for gold, the fever for wealth, nothing
the law holds will make Jeff's responsibility to you
any the less in my sight.  I—I did not know.
You believe me, don't you?  I did not know.  Even
if I had known, perhaps it would not have made any
difference.  But I am sure of one thing—I could
never have married a man to live on what he had
stolen from another."  As he turned toward her
she put her hands over her face.  "Oh, I am
shamed—shamed.  Perhaps I could have done something;
I would have tried.  You know that I would have
tried—don't you?"

"Yes, yes, I know.  I would not have told, I
would not have made you unhappy—but it
maddens me to see you here with what is mine—his
wife."  He took her hands down and made her
look in his face.  "Don't think harshly of me.  It
isn't the money.  If you could have had it—if
you didn't have to share it with him—can't you
understand?"

But she would not look at him, and only
murmured, "I understand—I understand many things
I did not know before.  But the one thing that
seems most important is that I am his wife.
Whatever he has done to others, he has been very good,
very gentle and kind to me."

He dropped her hands and turned violently away.
"How could you?" he groaned.  "How could you
have married him?"

"God knows!"

The words were wrung from her quickly, like the
sudden dropping of a burden which shocked by
the noise of its impact before she was conscious of
its loss.  She turned in the same moment and
looked at him, hoping that he had not heard her.
But before she could prevent him he had caught her
in his arms and held her close to his body, so that,
struggle as she might, there was no chance for her
to escape.  And in his eyes she saw the gleam of
an old delight, a bright, wild spark among the
embers of bitterness.

"Camilla!" he whispered.  "I know now.  God
forgive me that I did not know before—out there
in the schoolhouse, when you gave yourself to him.
You loved me then—you love me now.  Isn't
that why you tremble, Camilla?  You need not
speak.  Your heart is close to mine and I can
read——"

"No, no, no," she murmured.  "It is not true.
You must not.  I did not mean—what I said,
you misunderstood——"

"Once I misunderstood.  I won't make the same
mistake again.  It was I who found you there,
parching in the desert, and taught you how to
grow—who showed you that life was something
more than the barren waste you had found it.
Won't you forgive me?  I was a fool—and
worse.  Look up at me, Camilla, dear.  You were
mine out there before you were his.  At least a
half of what Jeff Wray has stolen from me—your
spiritual side——"

At the sound of her husband's name she raised
her head and looked up at him in a daze.  He caught
her again madly, and his lips even brushed her cheek,
but she started from his arms and sped the length
of the room away from him.

"Camilla!"

"No, no.  You must not."  She stood facing
him, wildly pleading.  "Don't come near me, Cort.
Is this the way you are going to try to forget—the
way you will teach me to forget?"

"I didn't know then—I want you, Camilla——"

As he came forward she retreated to the door
of the library and put her hand on the knob.  She
did not hear the soft patter of feet on the other side.

"Then I must go," she said decisively.

He stopped, looked at her blankly, then turned away.

"I suppose you're right," he said quietly.  "Forgive
me.  I had almost forgotten."

He slowly paced the room away from her and,
his head in his hands, sank in a distant chair.  He
heard her sharp sigh and the sound of her footsteps
as she gathered courage and came forward.  But
he did not move, and listened with the dull ears
of a broken man from whom all hope has departed.

"It is going to be harder than I thought.  I
hoped at least that I could keep what was in my
heart a secret.  When my secret was my own it
did not seem as if I was doing any injustice to—to
Jeff.  It was my heart that was breaking—not
his.  What did my secrets matter as long as I did
my duty?  But now that you share the burden I
know that I am doing him a great wrong—a greater
wrong even than he has done to you.  I can't blame
you for coming here.  It is hard to forgive a wrong
like that.  But with me it is different.  No
matter what Jeff has done, what he may do,
my duty is very clear—my duty to him, and
even to you.  I don't know just how—I must
have time to think it out for myself.  One thing
is certain: I must not see you again."

He waved a hand in deprecation.  "That is so
easy to say.  You shall see me again," he
threatened.  "I will not give you up."

"You must!  I will find some excuse to leave New
York."

"I'll follow you," doggedly.  "You're mine."

She paused in dismay.  Were all the odds to
be against her?  A sudden terror gripped her heart
and left her supine.  She summoned her strength
with an effort.

"Cort!" she cried desperately.  "You must not
speak to me like that.  I will not listen.  You don't
know what you are saying."

"I don't care what I'm saying—you have driven
me mad."  As he rose, she retreated, still facing
him, her lips pale, her eyes bright, her face drawn
but resolved.

"And I," she said clearly, "I am sane again.
If you follow—I will ring.  Do you hear?"

Her hand sought the wall, then was arrested in
mid air.  A sound of voices, the ringing of a bell,
and the soft patter of a servant's steps in the corridor
brought Cortland Bent to his senses.

"It's Jeff," she whispered breathlessly; and then
with a quiet air of self-command, the dignity of a
well-bred hostess, "Will you sit down, Mr. Bent?
I will ring for tea."

In the shadowed doorway a tall figure stood.

"Why, Jeff," said Camilla coolly, "you're early,
aren't you?  I thought——"

She rose as she realized that the gentleman in
the doorway wore a frock coat—a garment Jeff
affected to despise—and that the hair at his temples
was white.  "I beg your pardon," she murmured.

The gentleman smiled and came forward into the
room with outstretched hand.

"I am General Bent.  Is this Mrs. Wray?  Your
husband is coming along."

Jeff entered from the corridor at this moment.
"Hello, Camilla!  The General was kind enough
to say he wanted to meet you, so he brought me
uptown in his machine."

The eyes of both newcomers fell on Cortland
Bent, who emerged from the shadow.

"Why, Cort!  You here?" said the General,
and if his quick tones showed slight annoyance, his
well-bred accents meant only polite inquiry.

"Yes, dad.  How do you do, Mr. Wray?"

Wray went over and took him by the hand.

"Well! well!" said Wray heartily.  "This is sure
like old times.  Glad to see you, Bent.  It seems
like only yesterday that you and Camilla were
galloping over the plains together.  A year and a half
has made some changes, eh?  Camilla, can't we
have a drink?  One doesn't meet old friends every day."

"I rang for tea."

"Tea?  Ugh!  Not tea, Camilla.  I can't get
used to these foreign notions.  General—Cort—some
Scotch?  That's better.  Tea was invented
for sick people and old maids," and then, as the
servant entered, "Tell Greer to bring the tray,
and some cigars.  You'll let us, won't you, Camilla?
General Bent and I have been talking for two
hours, and if there's any thirstier business than
that——"

"I hope we aren't intruding," said the General.
"I have been very anxious to meet you, Mrs. Wray."

"I'm very much flattered.  I'm afraid, though,
that Jeff has taken you out of your way."  She
paused, conscious that the sharp eyes of the old
man were peering at her curiously from under the
shadows of his bushy eyebrows.  "I feel as if I ought
to know you very well," she went on.  "In the West
your son often spoke of you."

"Did he?  H—m!"  And then, with a laugh,
"Cortland, my boy, what did you say to her?
You expected to see an old ogre, didn't you?"

"Oh, no, but you are different from the idea I
had of you.  You and your son are not in the
least alike, are you?"

"No.  You see Cortland took the comeliness of
the Davidges, and I—well, I won't tell you what
they call me in the Street," he laughed grimly.
"You know Mr. Wray and I have some interests
in the West in common—some properties that
adjoin, and some railroads that join.  It's absurdly
simple.  *He* wants what *I* have, and *I* want what
*he* has, and neither of us is willing to give up a
square inch.  Won't you tell us what to do?"

"I give it up," she laughed.  "My husband has
a way of getting what he wants."

"The great secret of that," said Wray comfortably,
"is wanting what you can get.  Still, I don't
doubt that when the General's crowd gets through
with me there won't be enough of me to want
anything.  You needn't worry about the 'Lone
Tree,' Cortland.  You'll have it again, after a while,
when my hide is spread out to dry."

General Bent's eyes vanished under his heavy brows.

"No," he said cryptically.  "It looks as though
the fruit of the 'Lone Tree' was forbidden."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DINERS OUT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   DINERS OUT

.. vspace:: 2

When the visitors had gone, Camilla
disappeared in the direction of her own
apartment.  The thought of being alone with
Jeff was intolerable to her.  She must have time
to think, to wash away the traces of her emotion,
which she was sure even the shadows of the drawing
room could hardly have hidden from the sharp
eyes of her elderly guest.  Her husband had given
no indication of having noticed anything unusual
in her appearance, but she knew that he would not
have let her discover it if he had.  She breathed
a sigh of relief when the door was closed behind
her, dismissed her maid, and, slipping into a
comfortable garment, threw herself face downward
on a couch and buried her head in its pillow.

Out of the disordered tangle of her thoughts one
idea gradually evolved—that she must not see
Cortland Bent again.  She could not plan just
now how she was to avoid him, for General Bent
had already invited them to dine at his house, and
she knew that she must go, for Jeff's sake, no
matter what it cost her.  She could not blame Cortland
as much as she blamed herself, for she realized
now how vulnerable she had been even from the
first moment when she had entered the room,
bravely assuring herself that she cared for him no
longer.  The revelation of her husband's part
in the lease of the "Lone Tree" had shocked her,
but even her abomination of his brutal method of
consummating the business was lost in the
discovery of her own culpability.  Before to-day
it had not seemed so great a sin to hold another
man's image in her heart, but the disclosure of
her secret had robbed it of some of the dignity
of seclusion.  The one thing that had redeemed her
in the past had been the soft pains of self-abnegation,
and now she had not even those to comfort her.

The revelation to Cort had even made their
relation a little brutal.  She fought with herself
silently, proposing subterfuge and sophistry, then
dragging her pitiful treasure forth remorselessly
under the garish light of conscience.  She could
not understand the change that Cortland's presence
made; for what yesterday had been only unduteous,
to-day was a sin.  What then had been a balm was
now a poison.

.. vspace:: 2

Morning brought regeneration.  The sun shone
brightly through her yellow curtains, and her maid
brought with her breakfast tray a note from the
contrite Cortland.

.. vspace:: 2

"Forgive me, Camilla.  Forgive me.  Call me
selfish, unreasonable, cruel—anything you
like—but don't tell me I shall not see you again.
You will find me a model of all the virtues.  Gladys
is calling on you to-day.  You are coming to the
dinner, aren't you?  I will be there—in a corner
somewhere, but I won't bother you.  The night
has brought me patience.  Forgive me.

.. vspace:: 1

"C."

.. vspace:: 2

Camilla slipped the note among her laces, and
when Jeff looked in to bring her the invitation
which had arrived in the morning mail to dine
at the house of Cornelius Bent, she presented a
fair face and joyous countenance.

.. vspace:: 2

General Bent's dinners had a way of being
ponderous—like himself.  From soup to coffee the
victuals were rich and highly seasoned, the wines
full-bodied; his dishes were heavy, his silver-service
massive, his furniture capacious.  The impression
of solidity was further enhanced by the
thick oak paneling, the wide fireplace, and the
sumptuous candelabra.  Many, if not all, of these
adjectives might readily be applied to his
men-servants, who had been so long in his employ that
the essentials of their surroundings had been seared
into their souls.  The Bent régime was their
religion, the General its high priest, and their offices
components of a ceremony which they observed
with impressive dignity and sedate fervor.

As a rule, the personality of the General's guests
did nothing to detract from the impression of
opulence.  They were the heavy men of affairs,
the big men of clubdom, of business, of religion,
of politics.  Camilla had been warned of what
she must expect, but it was with feelings of
trepidation not far removed from awe that she and
Jeff got down from their taxi under the glow of the
porte-cochère before the wide portal of the great
house in Madison Avenue.  Her last admonition
to her husband in the cab had been, "Jeff, don't
shuffle your feet!  And don't say 'ma'am.'  And
keep your hands out of your pockets!  If you can't
think of anything to say, don't say it."

Wray only laughed.  He was very much at his
ease, for he had convinced himself downtown that
the doors of the Bent establishment would not have
swung so wide had the General not found that
Wray's holdings and influence in the West were
matters which some day he would have to reckon with.

When they arrived they were pleased to discover
that there were to be young people among the
guests as well as old.  Three stout, florid gentlemen,
members of the directorate of the Amalgamated
Reduction Company, whom Jeff had met downtown,
with their wives, and Mr. and Mrs. Worthington
Rumsen lent their share to the dignity the General
required, but there was a leaven of a younger set
in Gladys, his daughter (Mrs. Bent had died many
years before), Cortland, his son, and some others.
Most of the guests were already in the drawing
room when the Wrays were announced.  And
Camilla entered a little uncertainly, her eyes
sparkling, seeking her hostess.  There was a subdued
masculine murmur of approval, a raising of lorgnons
to aged feminine noses, a general movement of
appreciation.

Camilla was radiant.  Cortland Bent came
forward from his corner, slowly drinking in her
loveliness with his eyes.  She was gowned in white and
wore no ornaments.  The slenderness which all
women ape was hers without asking.  Her ruddy
hair at the last moment had resisted the arts of the
hair-dresser, and so she wore it as she had always
done, in a heavy coil like a rope of flame.  If she
had been pale as she entered, the blood now flowed
quickly—almost too quickly to be
fashionable—suffusing her face and gently warming her
splendid throat and shoulders.

"Am I late?" she asked.  "I'm so sorry.  Will
you forgive me?"

"You're not late," said her hostess.  "Awfully
glad——"

"We're bountifully repaid," put in General Bent
gallantly, as he came forward.  "I'm sure you're
quite worth waiting for.  I've been telling New
York for years it had better keep its eyes on
the West.  Now I must warn its women.  How
are you, Wray?  You know Warrington—and
Janney.  Let me present you, Wray—the Baroness
Charny."

Jeff felt himself appraised civilly.

"You are *the* Mr. Wray?" she asked him.  "The
rich Mr. Wray?"

Jeff flushed with pleasure.  Nothing ever tickled
him more than a reference to his possessions.

"I'm Wray—from Colorado.  And you—you
know I've never seen a real live baroness before.
So don't mind if I look at you a little.  You see, we
never have anybody like you out our way——"

"I don't mind in the least," she said with a slight
accent.  "What did you think a baroness ought to
look like?"

"I had a kind of an idea she was stoutish, wore a
crown, and sat in a big chair all day, ordering people
around."

"I'm afraid you read fairy stories.  I don't own
a crown, and I might order people all day, but
nobody would pay the least attention to me."

"What a pity," he said soberly.

His ingenuousness was refreshing.

"You know, Mr. Wray, baronesses aren't any
more important nowadays than anybody else.
The only barons worth while in the world are the
Coal Barons, the Wheat Barons, the Gold Barons,
like you."  And then, "Did you know that you were
to take me in?  Are you glad?"

"Of course," with a vague attempt at gallantry.
"I'd take you anywhere and be proud to."

"Then give me your arm," she laughed.  And
they followed the others in to dinner.  Wray's
other neighbor was Mrs. Rumsen, his host's sister.
Camilla had related many tales of her social prowess,
and she was really the only person at the table of
whom Jeff stood the least in awe.  Mrs. Rumsen's
nose was aquiline like her brother's, her eyebrows
high and slightly arched, her eyes small and rather
close together, as though nature had intended them
for a short but concentrated vision.  She held her
head very erect, and from her great height was
enabled without pretence to look down on all
lesser things.  Cortland had described her as a
grenadier, and, as Wray realized that the moment
when he must talk to her was inevitably
approaching, he lost some faith in his moods and
tenses.

"Mr. Wray," she began, in a tone which was
clearly to be heard the length of the table, "you
have a handsome wife."

"Yes, ma'am," he drawled.  "I'm glad you think
so, Mrs. Rumsen."

"A woman with her looks and your money could
have the world at her feet if she wished."

"Yes.  I've told her the same thing.  But I
don't think she likes a fuss.  Why, I sent up a
whole carload of hats—all colors, with plumes
and things, but she wouldn't have one of them."

The old lady's deep wrinkles relaxed.

"And diamonds——" he went on.  "She's got
half a peck, but I can't get her to put them on."

Mrs. Rumsen did not reply, only examined
him with her small eyes through her lorgnon.

"You know, Mr. Wray, ever since you came into
the room you have been a puzzle to me.  Your
features resemble those of some one I have
known—years ago—some one I have known
intimately—curious I can't——"

"Have you ever been West?"

"Oh, yes.  Were your people——?"

"I have no people, Mrs. Rumsen," he said with a
quick air of finality.

"Oh!"  She still looked at him wonderingly.
"I beg your pardon."  Then she went on calmly,
"You really interest me a great deal.  I have seen
Westerners in New York before—but you're
different—I mean," she added, "the cut of your
nose, the lines of your chin, the set of your head on
your shoulders.  I hope you'll forgive an old
woman's curiosity."

Jeff bowed politely.  "I'm very much flattered,
Mrs. Rumsen."

"You and my brother have business interests
in common?"

"Yes, I've a mine—a chain of mines and property
interests, including a control of the Denver and
Western Railroad."

She laid a hand impressively on his arm.

"Hold them.  Take my advice and hold them.
I know it is a great temptation to extend your
control, to be a big man East and West.  But
don't try it by weakening what you have.  Other
men have come here to set the Hudson afire——"

"Some of them have done it, too, Mrs. Rumsen."

She shrugged.  "What is the use?  You have an
empire of your own.  Stay at home, develop it.
Wouldn't you rather be first in Mantua than second
in Rome?"

"I—I'm afraid I don't just take you?"

"I mean, wouldn't you rather be an emperor
among your own people than fetch and carry—as
so many others are doing—for Wall Street?"

"That's just the point.  Only the boot is on the
other leg.  Wall Street needs the West.  Wall
Street doesn't think so.  It's away behind the
times.  Those people downtown are so stuck on
themselves that they think the whole country is
stooping with its ear to the ground listening to
what they're doing.  Why, Mrs. Rumsen, there
are men in the West—big men, too—who think
Wall Street is a joke.  Funny, isn't it?  Wall
Street doesn't seem to know that millions of acres
of corn, of wheat, and potatoes keep growing just
the same.  Those things don't wait to hear what
Wall Street thinks.  Only God Almighty can make
'em stop growing.  And as long as they grow, we
don't bother much."

She smiled approvingly.

"Then why do you care?"

"Oh, I'm a kind of missionary.  These people
downtown are heathen critters.  They're so
ignorant about their own country it almost makes me
ashamed to talk to them."

The last vestige of the grenadier aspect in
Mrs. Rumsen had vanished, and her face dissolved in
smiles.

"Heathens!  They are," she laughed delightedly.
"Critters—yes, critters, too.  Splendid!  Have you
told Cornelius—my brother—that?"

Wray's truffle stuck in his throat and he gasped,
"Good God, ma'am!  No.  You won't tell him,
will you?"

"I'd like to," she chuckled.  "But I won't."

Jeff laughed.  "I'm afraid I've put my foot in
it.  I'm apt to.  I'm rather a raw product——"

"Whatever you do, Mr. Wray, don't change.
You're positively refreshing.  Anybody can learn
to be good form.  It's as simple as a, b, c.  If it
wasn't easy there wouldn't be so many people
practising it.  The people in the shops even adopt
our adjectives before they're well out of our mouths.
Hats are 'smart,' when in earlier days they were
simply 'becoming.'  Gowns are 'fetching' or
'stunning' that were once merely 'pretty.'  Let
a fashionable Englishman wear a short coat with a
high hat to the Horse Show, and every popinjay
in town will be doing the same thing in a week.
If you're a raw product, remain so by all means.
Raw products are so much more appetizing than
half-baked ones."

"I don't think there's any way to make me any
different, Mrs. Rumsen," he laughed, "even if
I wanted to be.  People will have to take me as I
am.  Your brother has been kind.  It seems as
if he had a broader view of our people than most of
the others."

"Don't be too sure.  They're all tarred with the
same stick.  It's a maxim of mine never to put
my trust in any person or thing below Twenty-third
Street.  The farther downtown you go, the
deeper the villainy.  You'll find all New Yorkers
much the same.  Out of business hours they are
persons of the most exemplary habits, good fathers,
vestrymen in churches, excellent hosts.  In
business——" she held up her hands in mock horror.

"Oh, I know," Wray chuckled.  "But I'm not
afraid.  I'm something of a wolf myself.  Your
brother needs me more than I need him.  I think
we'll get along."

"You have everything you want.  Take my
advice and keep your money in the West."

"Thanks.  But I like New York, and I don't
want to be idle.  Besides, there's Camilla—Mrs. Wray,
you know."

"Yes, I see.  I can't blame her.  No woman
with her looks wants to waste them on mountain
scenery.  I must know her better—and you.
She must let me call on her.  I'm giving a ball
later.  Do you think you could come?"

And the great lady turned to her dinner partner.

The Baroness, too, was amiable.  It was her
first visit to America.  Her husband was an attaché
of an embassy in Washington.  She had not yet
been in the West.  Were all the men big, as
Mr. Wray was?

She had a charming faculty of injecting the
personal note into her questions, and before he
was aware of it Wray found himself well launched
in a description of his country—the mountains,
the plains, the cowboys.

She had never heard of cowboys.  What were
they?  Little cows?

Jeff caught a warning look from Camilla across
the table, which softened his laughter.  He
explained, and the Baroness joined in the merriment.
Then he told her that he had been for years a
cowpuncher down in Arizona and New Mexico before
he went into business, described the "round-up,"
the grub wagon, and told her of a brush with some
Yaqui Indians who were on the warpath.  When
he began, the other people stopped talking and
listened.  Jeff was in his element and without
embarrassment finished his story amid plaudits.
Camilla, listening timidly, was forced to admit that
his domination of the table was complete.  The
conversation became general, a thing which rarely
happened at the Bent dinners, and Jeff discovered
himself the centre of attention.  Almost
unconsciously he found himself addressing most of his
remarks to a lady opposite, who had listened and
questioned with an unusual show of interest.

When the ices were passed he turned to Mrs. Rumsen
and questioned.

"Haven't you met her?"  And then, across the
table, "Rita—you haven't met Mr. Wray—Mrs. Cheyne."





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.. _`MRS. CHEYNE`:

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   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   MRS. CHEYNE

.. vspace:: 2

Over the coffee, curiously enough, there
seemed to be a disposition to refrain from
market quotations, for General Bent skilfully
directed the conversation into other
channels—motoring—aviation—the Horse Show—the
newest pictures in the Metropolitan—and Jeff listened
avidly, newly alive to the interests of these people,
who, as Mrs. Rumsen had said, above Twenty-third
Street took on a personality which was not
to be confounded with the life downtown, where
he had first met them.  When Curtis Janney asked
him if he rode, Jeff only laughed.

"Oh, yes, of course you do.  One doesn't punch
cattle for nothing.  But jumping is different—and
then there's the saddle——"

"Oh, I think I can stay on without going for the
leather.  Anyway, I'd like to try."

"Right-o!" said Janney heartily.  "We've had
one run already—a drag.  Couldn't you and
Mrs. Wray come out soon?  We're having a few people
for the hunt week after next.  There will be
Cortland Bent, Jack Perot, the Rumsens, the Billy
Havilands, Mrs. Cheyne, the Baroness and—if
you'll come along—yourselves."

"Delighted.  I'm sure Camilla will be glad to
accept.  We haven't many engagements."

"I think you've hidden your wife long enough,
Mr. Wray.  Does she ride, too?"

"Like a breeze—astride.  But she wouldn't
know what to do on a side-saddle."

"I don't blame her.  Some of our women ride
across.  Gladys, Gretchen, Mrs. Cheyne——"

"Well," Jeff silently raised his brandy glass in
imitation of his companion, "I'm glad there are
a few horses somewhere around here—I haven't
seen any outside of the shafts of a hansom since I
left the West."

"The horse would soon be extinct if it wasn't
for Curtis Janney," put in the General breezily.
"Why, he won't even own a motor.  No snorting
devils for him.  Might give his horses the pip or
something.  The stable is worth seeing, though.
You're going, aren't you, Wray?"

In the library, later, Wray found Mrs. Cheyne.
Until he had come to New York Wray's idea of a
woman had never strayed from Camilla.  There
were other females in the Valley, and he had known
some of them, but Camilla had made any
comparison unfortunate.  She was a being living in a
sphere apart, with which mere clay had nothing
in common.  He had always thought of her as he
thought of the rare plants in Jim Noakes'
conservatory in Denver, flowers to be carefully nurtured
and admired.  Even marriage had made little
difference in his point of view.  It is curious that he
thought of these things when he leaned over
Mrs. Cheyne.  To his casual eye this new acquaintance
possessed many of the characteristics of his wife.
Perhaps even more than Camilla she represented a
mental life of which he knew nothing, contributed
more than her share to the sublimated atmosphere
in which he found himself moving.  They might
have been grown in the same conservatory, but,
if Camilla was the Orchid, Mrs. Cheyne was the
Poinsettia flower.  And yet she was not beautiful
as Camilla was.  Her features, taken one at a time,
were singularly imperfect.  He was almost ready
to admit that she wasn't even strikingly pretty.
But as he looked at her he realized for the first time
in his life the curious fact that a woman need not
be beautiful to be attractive.  He saw that she
was colorful and unusually shapely, and that she
gave forth a flow of magnetism which her air of
*ennui* made every effort to deny.  Her eyes, like
her hair, were brown, but the pupils, when she lifted
her lids high enough to show them, were so large
that they seemed much darker.  Her dinner dress,
cut straight across her shoulders, was of black,
like the jewelled bandeau in her hair and the pearls
which depended from her ears.  These ornaments,
together with the peculiar dressing of her hair,
gave her well-formed head an effect which, if done
in brighter hues, might have been barbaric, but
which, in the subdued tones of her color scheme,
only added to the impression of sombre distinction.

As he approached, she looked up at him sleepily.

"I thought you were never coming," she said.

"Did you?" said Wray, bewildered.  "I—I came
as soon as I could, Mrs. Cheyne.  We had our
cigars——"

"Oh, I know.  Men have always been selfish—they
always will be selfish.  Cousin Cornelius is
provincial to herd the men and women—like
sheep—the ones in one pen, the others in another.
There isn't a salon in Europe—a real salon—where
the women may not smoke if they like."

"You want to smoke——"

"I'm famished—but the General doesn't approve——"

Wray had taken out his cigarette case.  "Couldn't
we find a spot?"

She rose and led the way through a short corridor
to the conservatory, where they found a stone
bench under a palm.

He offered her his case, and she lit the cigarette
daintily, holding it by the very tips of her fingers,
and steadying her hand against his own as Wray
would have done with a man's.  Wray did not
speak.  He watched her amusedly, aware of the
extraordinary interest with which she invested his
pet vice.

"Thanks," she said gratefully.  Turning toward
him then, she lowered her chin, opened her eyes,
and looked straight into his.

"You know, you didn't come to me nearly as
soon as I thought you would."

"I—I didn't know——"

"You should have known."

"Why should I——?"

"Because I wanted you to."

"I'm glad you wanted me.  I think I'd have
come anyway."

She smiled approvingly.

"Then my efforts were unnecessary."

"Your efforts?"

"Yes, I willed it.  You interested me, you see."

He looked at her quickly.  Her eyes only closed
sleepily, then opened again.

"I'm lucky," he said, "that's sure."

"How do you know?  I may not be at all the
kind of person you think I am."

"I'll take a chance on that—but I wish you'd
tell me what made you want me."

"I was bored.  I usually am.  The Bent parties
are so formal and tiresome.  Everybody always
says the same things—does the same things."  She
sighed deeply.  "If Cousin Cornelius saw me
now I'd be in disgrace.  I wonder why I always
like to do the things people don't expect me to."

"You wouldn't be much of a woman if you didn't,"
he laughed.  "But I like surprises.  There wouldn't
be much in life if you knew what was going to
happen every minute."

"You didn't think I was going to happen then?"

"Er—no.  Maybe I hoped so."

"Well," she smiled, "I have happened.  What
are you going to do about it?"

"Be thankful—mostly.  You seem sort of
human, somehow.  You do what you want to—say
what you want——"

"And if I don't get what I want, ask for it," she
laughed.  "I told Gladys it was very inconsiderate
of her not to send you in to dinner with me.  She's
always doing that sort of thing.  Gladys lacks a
sense of proportion.  As it is, the evening is almost
gone, and we've only begun."

"I feel as if I'd known you for years," said Jeff
heartily.  "That's funny, too," he added, "because
you're so different from any other woman I've ever
known.  You look as if you might have come from
a book—but you speak out like Mesa City."

"Tell me about Mesa City.  You know I was out
West last year."

"Were you?  Sure?" eagerly.  "In Colorado?"

"Oh, yes," she said slowly, "but I was living in
Nevada."

"Nevada?  That was my old stamping ground.
I punched for the Bar Circle down there.  What part?"

"Reno."

"Oh!"

"I went there for my divorce."

His voice fell a note.  "I didn't know that.
I'm awfully sorry you were so unfortunate.  Won't
you tell me about it?"

"There's nothing to tell.  Cheyne and I were
incompatible—at least that's what the lawyers
said.  As such things go, I thought we got along
beautifully.  We weren't in the least incompatible
so long as Cheyne went his way and let me go mine.
It's so easy for married people to manage, if they
only knew how.  But Cheyne didn't.  He didn't
want to be with me himself—and he didn't want
any one else to be.  So things came to a pretty pass.
It actually got so bad that when people wanted
either of us to dinner they had to write first to
inquire which of us was to stay away.  It made a
lot of trouble, and the Cheyne family got to be a
bore—so we decided to break it up."

"Was he unkind to you—cruel?"

"Oh, dear, no!  I wish he had been.  Our life
was one dreadful round of cheerful monotony.  I
got so tired of the shape of his ears that I could
have screamed.  Yes, I really think," she mused,
"that it was his ears."

Wray examined her with his baby-like stare as
though she had been a specimen of ore.  There
seemed to be no doubt of the fact that she was
quite serious.

"I'm really sorry for him.  It is—very sad——"

She threw her head back and laughed softly.

"My dear Mr. Wray, your sympathy is
touching—he would appreciate it as much as I
do—if he had not already married again."

"Married?  Here in New York?"

"Oh, yes.  They're living within a stone's throw
of my house."

"Do you see him?"

"Of course.  I dined with them only last week.
You see," and she leaned toward him with an air
of new confidences, "that's only human.  I can't
really give up anything I've once possessed.  You
know, I try not to sell horses that I've liked.  I did
sell one once, and he turned up one morning in a
hired brougham.  That taught me a lesson I've
never forgotten.  Now when they outlive their
usefulness I turn them out on my farm in
Westchester.  Of course, I couldn't do that to Harold,
but I did the next best thing.  I've satisfied myself
that he's properly looked after—and I'm sure he'll
reflect credit on his early training."

"And he's happy?"

"Blissfully so.  It wouldn't be possible for a man
to have the advantages of a training like the one
I have given him and not be able to make a woman happy."

"But he didn't make *you* happy."

"Me?  Oh, I wasn't made for bondage of any kind.
Most women marry because they're bored or because
they're curious.  In either case they pay a penalty.
Marriage provides no panacea.  One only becomes
more bored—with one's own husband—or more
curious about other people's husbands."

"Are you curious?  You don't look as if you cared
enough to be curious."

"I do care."  She held her cigarette at arm's
length and flicked off its ash with her little finger.
"Mr. Wray, I'll let you into a secret.  A woman
never appears so bored as when she is intensely
interested in something—never so much
interested as when she is bored to extinction.  I am
curious.  I am trying to learn (without asking you
impertinent questions) how on earth you and
Mrs. Wray ever happened to marry."

She tilted her chin impudently and looked down
her nose at him, her eyes masked by her dark lashes,
through which it hardly seemed possible that she
could see him at all.  Jeff laughed.  She had her
nerve with her, he thought, but her frankness was
amusing.  He liked the way she went after what
she wanted.

"Oh, Camilla—I don't know.  It just happened,
I guess.  She's more your kind than mine.
I'm a good deal of a scrub, Mrs. Cheyne.  You
see, I never went to college—or even to high
school.  Camilla knows a lot.  She used to teach,
but I reckon she's about given up the idea of trying
to teach *me*.  I'm a low-brow all right.  I never
read a novel in my life."

"You haven't missed much.  Books were only
meant for people who are willing to take life at
second-hand.  One year of the life you lived on the
range is worth a whole shelf-ful.  The only way
to see life is through one's own eyes."

"Oh, I've seen life.  I've been a cowboy, rancher,
speculator, miner, and other things.  And I've seen
some rough times.  But I wouldn't have worked
at those things if I hadn't needed the money.  Now
I've got it, maybe I'll learn something of the
romantic side of life."

She leaned back and laughed at him.  "You
dear, delicious man.  Then it has never occurred
to you that during all these years you've been living
a romance?"

He looked at her askance.

"And then, to cap it all," she finished, "you
discover a gold mine, and marry the prettiest woman
in the West.  I suppose you'll call that prosaic,
too.  You're really quite remarkable.  What is
it that you expect of life after all?"

"I don't know," he said slowly, "something
more——"

"But there's nothing left."

"Oh, yes, there is.  I've only tasted success, but
it's good, and I like it.  What I've got makes me
want more.  There's only one thing in the world
that really means anything to me—and that's
power——"

"But your money——"

"Yes, money.  But money itself doesn't mean
anything to me—idle money—the kind of money
you people in New York are content to live on,
the interest on land or bonds.  It's what live, active
money can do that counts with me.  My money
has got to keep working the way I work—only
harder.  Some people worship money for what it
can buy their bodies.  I don't.  I can't eat more
than three square meals a day.  I want my money to
make the desert bloom—to make the earth pay up
what it owes, and build railroads that will carry
its products where they're needed.  I want it to
take the miserable people away from the alleys in
your city slums and put them to work in God's
country, where their efforts will count for
something in building up the waste ground that's
waiting for them out there.  Why, Mrs. Cheyne, last
year I took up a piece of desert.  There wasn't a
thing on it but rabbit-brush.  Last spring I worked
out a colonization plan and put it through.  There's
a town there now called Wrayville, with five
thousand inhabitants, two hotels, three miles of paved
sidewalk, a public school, four factories, and two
newspapers.  All that in six months.  It's a hummer,
I can tell you."

As he paused for breath she sighed.  "And yet
you speak of romance."

"Romance?  There's no romance in that.  That's
just get-up-and-get.  I had to hustle, Mrs. Cheyne.
I'd promised those people the water from the
mountains on a certain date, but I couldn't do it,
and the big ditch wasn't finished.  I was in a bad
fix, for I'd broken my word.  Those people had
paid me their money, and they threatened to lynch
me.  They had a mass meeting and were calling
me some ugly names when I walked in.  Why
they didn't take a shot at me then, I don't
know—but they didn't.  I got up on the table, and,
when they stopped yelling, I began to talk to 'em.
I didn't know just what to say, but I knew I had
to say something and make good—or go out of
town in a pine box.  I began by telling 'em what
a great town Wrayville was going to be.  They
only yelled, 'Where's our water?'  I told them it
was coming.  They tried to hoot me down, but I
kept on."

"Weren't you afraid?"

"You bet I was.  But *they* never knew it.  I
tried to think of a reason why they didn't have that
water, and in a moment they began to listen.  I
told 'em there was thirty thousand dollars' worth of
digging to be done.  I told 'em it would *be* done,
too, but that I didn't see why that money should go
out of Wrayville to a lot of contractors in Denver.
I'd been saving that work for the citizens of
Wrayville.  I was prepared to pay the highest wages for
good men, and, if Wrayville said the word, they
could begin the big ditch to-morrow."

"What did they do?"

"They stopped yelling right there, and I knew I
had 'em going.  In a minute they started to cheer.
Before I finished they were carrying me around the
hall on their shoulders.  Phew—but that took some
quick thinking."

Mrs. Cheyne had started forward when he began,
and, as he went on, her eyes lost their sleepy look,
her manner its languor, and she followed him to the
end in wonder.  When he stopped, she sank back
in her corner, smiling, and repeated: "Romance?
What romance is there left in the world for a man
like you?"

He looked up at her with his baby stare and then
laughed awkwardly.  "You're making fun of me,
Mrs. Cheyne.  I've been talking too much, I reckon."

She didn't reply at once, and the look in her eyes
embarrassed him.  He reached for his cigarette
case, offered it to her, and, when she refused, took
one himself, lit it slowly, gazing out of the transom
opposite.

"I hope I haven't tired you, Mrs. Cheyne.  It's
dangerous to get me talking about myself.  I never
know when to stop."

"I don't want you to stop.  I've never been so
entertained in my life.  I don't believe you know
how interesting you are."

He turned toward her, embarrassed and still
incredulous.  "You're very kind," he muttered.

"You mustn't be so humble," she broke in
sharply.  "You weren't so a minute ago.  I like
you best when you are talking of yourself."

"I thought I'd like to talk about you."

She waved a hand in deprecation.  "Me?  Oh,
no.  We can't come to earth like that.  Tell me
another fairy tale."

"Fairy tale?  Then you don't believe me?"

"Oh, yes," she laughed, "I believe you, but to me
they're fairy tales just the same.  It seems so easy
for you to do wonderful things.  I wish you'd do
some conjuring for me."

"Oh, there isn't any magic business about me.
But I'll try.  What do you want most?"

She put an elbow on her knee and gazed at the
blossom in her fingers.  Her voice, too, fell a note.

"What I think I want most," she said slowly,
"is a way out of this."  She waved the blossom
vaguely in the direction of the drawing room.  "I'm
sick of it all, of the same tiresome people, the same
tiresome dinners, dances, teas.  We're so narrow,
so cynical, so deeply enmeshed in our small
pursuits.  I'm weary—desperately weary of myself."

"You?"

"Yes."  And then, with a short, unmirthful laugh,
"That's my secret.  You didn't suspect it, did you?"

"Lord! no."  And after a pause, "You're
unhappy about him?"

"Cheyne?  Oh, no.  He's the only thing I am
happy about.  Have you ever been really bored,
Mr. Wray?"

"Never.  I never even heard the word until I
came to New York."

"Have you ever been so tired that your body
was numb—so that if you struck it a blow you
were hardly conscious of it, when you felt as if you
could go to sleep and never want to wake up?  Well,
that's the condition of my mind.  It's so tired of the
same impressions that it fails to make note of
them; the people I see, the things I do, are all
blurred and colorless like a photograph that has
been taken out of focus.  The only regret I have
when I go to sleep is that I have to wake up again."

"My dear Mrs. Cheyne——"

"Oh, I'm not morbid.  I'm too bored to be
morbid even.  I don't think I'm even unhappy.
It takes an effort to be unhappy.  I can't tell you
what the matter is.  One drifts.  I've been drifting
a long time.  I think I have too much money.  I
want to *want* something."

"Don't you ever want anything you can't have?"

She sat upright, and her voice, instead of drawling
languidly, came in the quick accents of discovery.
"Yes, I do.  I've just found out.  You've actually
created a new interest in life.  Won't you be nice
to me?  Come and see me often and tell me more
fairy tales."





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.. _`BRAEBANK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   BRAEBANK

.. vspace:: 2

"I can't see, Curtis," said Mrs. Janney, in
the smoking room, "why you chose to ask
those vulgar Wrays to Braebank.  It almost
seems as if you were carrying your business
relationships too far.  The woman is pretty enough,
and I dare say her easy Western ways will be
attractive to the masculine portion of your guests.
But the man is impossible—absolutely impossible!
He does not even use correct English, and his
manners—atrocious!"

The palms of the good lady's hands, as she raised
them in her righteous wrath, were very pink on the
inside, like the petals of rosebuds.  They were
sheltered hands, very soft and plump, and their
fingers bore many large and expensive jewels.
Mrs. Janney was made up wholly of convex curves, which
neither art nor starvation could deflect.  The
roundness of her face was further accented by
concentric curves at brows, mouth, and chin, which
gave the impression of a series of parentheses.  It
would not be stretching the figure too far to add that
Mrs. Janney, in most of their few affiliations, bore
a somewhat parenthetical relation to her husband.
Her life, as well as her conversation, was made up
of "asides," to which Curtis Janney was not in
the habit of paying the slightest attention.  Her
present remarks, however, seemed to merit a reply.

"My dear Amelia," he said, tolerantly, from his
easy chair, "when we were first married you used
to say that all a man needed to make his way in
New York was a dress suit and a smile.  Wray has
both.  Besides, it is quite necessary to be on good
terms with him.  As for his wife, I have rarely seen
a girl who created such an agreeable impression.
Cornelius Bent has taken them up.  He has his
reasons for doing so.  So have I.  I'll trouble you,
therefore, to be civil."

He got up and put down his cigar, and Mrs. Janney
shrugged her shoulders into a more
pronounced convexity.

"I won't question your motives, Curtis, though,
of course, I know you have them.  But I don't
think we can afford to jeopardize our standing by
always taking up new people like the Wrays.  The
man is vulgar—the woman, provincial."

Mr. Janney by this time had taken up the telephone
and was ordering the wagons to the station.

"Why, Gretchen, dear!  You're late.  It's
almost train time."  Miss Janney entered in riding
clothes from the terrace, bringing traces of the fine
November weather.  She was a tall, slender girl
of the athletic type, sinuous and strong, with a skin
so firm and ruddy from the air that it glowed crisply
as though shot with mica.

"Is it, mother?  Cortland and I had *such* a
wonderful ride.  He is really quite the nicest man in
the world.  Aren't you, Cort?"

"Of course I am," said Bent, laughing, as he
entered, "anything Gretchen says.  That's because
I never made love to her, isn't it, Gretchen?"

"Partly.  Love is so silly.  You know, daddy,
I've given Cort his *congé*."

Janney turned testily.  "What nonsense you
children talk!"

"I mean it, though, daddy," she went on calmly.
"I'm too fond of Cort ever to think of marrying
him.  We settled that still more definitely to-day.
Since you were so inconsiderate, you two, as to
neglect to provide me with a brother, I've adopted
Cort."

"Really, Gretchen, you're getting more hopeless
every day," sighed her mother.  "What does
Cortland say?"

"I?" laughed Bent.  "What is there left for me
to say?  We're hopelessly friendly, that's all.  I'm
afraid there's nothing left but to take to drink.
May I?"

He lifted the decanter of Scotch and poured himself
a drink, but Janney, with a scowl in the direction
of his daughter, left the room.

"You mustn't speak so heartlessly, dear," said
Mrs. Janney.  "You know it always makes your
father angry.  You must be patient with her,
Cortland."

"I am," said that gentleman, helping himself
to a cigarette.  "I'm the soul of patience,
Mrs. Janney.  I've pleaded and begged.  I've even
threatened suicide, but all to no purpose.  There's
no satisfaction in shooting one's self on account of
a girl who's going to laugh at your funeral."

He threw himself hopelessly into a big English
chair and sighed exuberantly, while Gretchen gave
him a reproachful look over her mother's shoulder.
"My poor boy, don't give her up," said the lady,
genuinely.  "All will come right in time, I'm sure.
You must be sweeter to him, Gretchen.  You
really must."

"I suppose I must," said Gretchen with an air
of resignation.  "I'll not be any more cruel than
I can help."

When the good lady left the room they looked
at each other for a moment, and then burst into
shameless laughter.

"Poor mother!  She never had a sense of humor.
I wouldn't laugh at your funeral, though, Cort.
That was unkind.  You know, I'm afraid father
is very much provoked."

Bent's laughter died, and he gazed at the ash of
his cigarette.  "He's really quite serious about it,
isn't he?"

"Oh, yes.  It's an awful nuisance, because, in
his way, he has a will as strong as mine."

Bent smiled.  "I'm glad I'm not in his boots.
You're fearfully stubborn, Gretchen."

"Because I insist on marrying whom I choose?"

"Because you insist on not marrying me."

Miss Janney sank in a chair by the table,
fingering the pages of a magazine.  She said nothing in
reply, but in a few moments spoke carelessly.

"Tell me something about Lawrence Berkely,
will you?"

"Larry?  You've only met him once.  Your curiosity
is indecent."

"You know he's coming here with the Wrays."

"Not really?  That's going a bit strong.  I don't
think I'll stand for that."

"Oh, yes, you will.  He's quite as good as we
are.  He belongs to *the* Berkelys of Virginia.
Mrs. Rumsen knows them."

"That's convincing.  Any one Aunt Caroline
knows will need no card to Saint Peter.  Oh, Larry's
all right.  But I warn you not to fall in love with
him."

"That's precisely what I've done," she asserted.

He glanced at her amusedly, but she met his look
coolly.

"It's true, Cort.  He's actually the only man I've
met since I came out who really isn't eligible.  I'm
so delighted.  Of course, father would never have
permitted it if he'd only known that Mr. Berkely
wasn't rich.  He hasn't much use for poor people.
Oh, he's well enough off, I suppose, as Mr. Wray's
partner, but then he doesn't own any of that
fabulous gold mine."

"How do you know all these things?"

"He told me.  Besides, he's terribly good looking,
and has had something the matter with his lungs."

"Well, of all the——"

"That's why he's been living in the West.  But
he's quite well now.  Isn't it splendid?  I only
hope he'll like me.  Don't you think he has
wonderful eyes?"

"I'm sure I never noticed.  See here, Gretchen,
you're talking rot.  I'm going to tell your father."

"Oh, I don't care," airily.  "But if you do, I'll
tell Mr. Wray."

"Wray?"

"Yes—that you're in love with his wife."

Miss Janney exploded this bombshell casually
while she removed her hat, watching him carefully
meanwhile in the mirror.  If she had planned her
coup, she could not have been more fully rewarded,
for Cortland started up, clutching at the chair arms,
his face aghast; but when his eyes met hers in the
mirror he sank back again, laughing uneasily.

"What—who on earth put that silly idea into
your head?"

"You—yourself.  I watched you at the Warringtons."

"What nonsense!  I've known Camilla a long time."

"Not so long as you've known me.  And you never
looked at me like that."  She laid her hat beside
her crop on the table, then turned quickly and put
her hand over his on the chair arm.  "You may
trust me, Cortland, dear.  If I'm going to be your
sister, I may as well begin at once.  It's true, isn't it?"

He remained silent a long while, his gaze fixed
on the open fire before him.  Then at last he turned
his hand over so that his fingers clasped hers.  "Yes,"
he whispered, "it's true, Gretchen.  It's true."

"I'm so sorry, Cort," she murmured.  "I
suspected from your letters.  I wish I might have
helped you.  I feel somehow that I am to blame—that
we ever got engaged.  Won't you tell me how
it happened that she married him—instead of you?"

"No, no," he said, rising and walking to the
window.  "She—she married Wray—because—because
she loved him, that's all.  I wasn't
the man."

Gretchen watched him wistfully, still standing
beside the chair he had vacated, full of the first deep
sympathy she had ever known.  Slowly she walked
over and put her hand timidly on his shoulder.

"You'll forgive me, won't you, Cort?  I wouldn't
have spoken if I had known how deeply you felt."  She
turned aside with a bitter little laugh.  "Isn't
it queer that life should be so full of complications?
Everybody expects you and me to marry each
other—at least, everybody but ourselves, and we
won't because—why is it that we won't?  Chiefly
because everybody expects us to—and because
it's so easy.  I'm sure if there was any reason why
we shouldn't marry, I'd love you quite madly.
Instead of which, you're in love with a married
woman, and I—I'm interested in a youth with
sad romantic eyes and an impaired breathing
apparatus."

"Gretchen, don't be silly," he said, smiling in
spite of himself.

"I'm really serious—you'll see."  She stopped
and clutched Bent's arm.  "Tell me, Cort.  He's
not married already, is he?"

"You silly child.  Not that I know of.  Berkely
is a conscientious sort of a bird—he wouldn't
have let you make love to him——"

"I *didn't*," with dignity, "we talked about the
weather mostly."

"That must have been romantic."

"Cort, I'll not speak to you again."  She rushed
past him to the window, her head erect.  Outside
was the whirr of an arriving motor.  "How tiresome.
Here come the Billy Havilands," she said, "and
they'll want to be playing 'Auction' at once.  They
always do.  As if there was nothing but 'Bridge'
in the world!"  She sniffed.  "I wish we were going
to be fewer in number.  Just you and I and——"

"And Larry?"

"Yes—and Mrs. Wray," she put in viciously.

Curtis Janney was already in the big stair hall
to welcome the arrivals.

"Billy—Dorothy—welcome!  Of course you
had to bring your buzz-wagon.  I suppose I'll be
driven to build a garage some day—but it will be
well down by the East Lodge.  Do you expect to
follow in that thing?  Rita!  Awfully glad.  Your
hunter came over last night.  He looks fit as a fiddle.
Aren't you cold?  Gretchen, dear, ring for tea."

Noiseless maids and men-servants appeared,
appropriated wraps and hand baggage, and departed.

"We timed it nicely," said Haviland, looking at
his watch.  "Forty-seven from the ferry.  We
passed your wagons a moment ago.  Gretchen,
who's the red-haired girl with the Rumsens?"

"*Et tu, Brute*?  That's Mrs. Wray.  None of us has
a chance when she's around.  Here they are now."

The two station wagons drew up at the terrace,
and the guests dismounted.  Mr. and Mrs. Rumsen
with the Wrays in the station wagon, and the
Baroness Charny, the Warringtons, Jack Perot, and
Lawrence Berkely in the 'bus.

"Well, Worthy!  Got here after all!  Caroline,
Mrs. Wray, would you like to go right up or will you
wait for tea?  Wray, there's something stronger
just inside.  Show him, won't you, Billy?"

Wray entered the big hall with a renewed
appreciation of the utility of wealth.  The houses in
New York which he had seen were, of course, built
upon a more moderate scale.  He had still to
discover that the men of wealth were learning to make
their week-ends out of town longer, and that the
real home-life of many of them had been transferred
to the country, where broad acres and limitless
means enabled them to gratify their tastes in
developing great estates which would hand down their
names in the architectural history of the country
when their city houses should be overwhelmed and
lost in the march of commerce.  Curtis Janney,
for all his great responsibilities, was an open-air
man, and he took a real delight in his great Tudor
house and stables.  The wide entrance hall which so
impressed Jeff was designed in the ripe Palladian
manner which distinguished the later work of the
great Inigo Jones.  This lofty room was the
keynote of the building—a double cube in shape,
the staircase which led from the centre opposite
the door ornate in a character purely classic—the
doorways to the other rooms on the same floor
masterful in structural arrangement and elegant
in their grace and simplicity.  It almost seemed as
though the room had been designed as a framework
for the two wonderful Van Dykes which were placed
at each side of the stairway.

Jeff smiled as he walked into the smoking room—the
smile of possession.  He realized, as never
before, that taste, elegance, style, were things which
could be bought with money, as one would buy
stock or a piece of real estate.  The only difference
between Curtis Janney and himself was that his
host had an ancestor or two—while Jeff had none.

Miss Janney had quietly and cleverly appropriated
Lawrence Berkely and was already on her way to
the conservatory.  Jack Perot, who painted the
portraits of fashionable ladies, had taken the Baroness
to the Long Room, where the English pictures were
hung.  Camilla, after a few polite comments on the
dignity of the house, sat a little aside in silence.
Cortland Bent, after a glance toward the door through
which Miss Janney had vanished, dropped into the
vacant chair beside her.

"I'm so glad to see you," she said genuinely.
"You know the magnificence is rather bewildering."  She
paused and lowered her voice.  "It seems as if
I hadn't seen you for ages."

"Yes," he murmured.  "I'm expecting wings
any day now.  I'm almost too good to be true."

"You're an angel," she smiled.  "I want you to
be good, and I'm sure I want you to be true.  And
yet"—she paused—"this seems the only case in
the world where to be true is to be bad."

"You can't make the sun stop shining."

"I don't think I want it to stop shining altogether.
You see, I'm selfish.  I want it under a
cloud, that's all."

There was a pause—significant to them both.

"I am trying, Camilla.  I am doing my best.
You appreciate that?"

"Yes, but it shouldn't be so hard.  I don't
think it would be hard for me in your place!"

His eyes questioned.

"Miss Janney—she is adorable."  She looked
over the rim of her cup at him as she finished
her tea.  "My dear Cort," she laughed, as she
handed it to him, "the best I can say for you is
that you have the worst taste in the world.  I'm
really in love with her myself.  I can't see what
you could have been thinking of——"

"Any more than *I* can see what *you* were thinking of."

There was a refuge from the danger toward which
she felt herself drifting, and she took it, addressing
her nearest neighbor.

"Mrs. Cheyne, don't you think men have abominable taste?"

"Oh, yes, abominable," laughed the lady.  "Ugh!
I hate mustaches, too, don't you?"

Camilla turned a shade rosier, but her discomfiture
was lost in the laughter of those who remembered
that Cheyne had worn a beard.

"You know I didn't mean just that," explained
Camilla.  "I meant their appreciation of
women—their sense of the esthetic——"

"Anesthetic, Mrs. Wray.  That's the only word
for a man's perceptions.  A French frock, a smart
hat, a little deft color, and the plainest of us is a
match for the gayest Lothario.  They're only bipeds,
instincts on legs——"

"Oh, I say now, Rita," laughed Bent.

"We can't stand for that, Mrs. Cheyne," put in
their host.  "I suppose you'd think me ungallant
if I asked you what kind of instincts women were."

"Instincts with wings," she purred, "angels by
intuition, rhapsodists by occupation, and sirens
by inheritance.  We're not in the least afraid of
you, Mr. Janney."

"I should think not.  For my part, if I knew that
one of you was camping on my trail, I'd give in at
once."

"I'm so glad.  It's a pet theory of mine that
when a woman really sets her cap for a man he had
better give up at once, for she will win him—fortune
favoring—in the end.  Don't you agree,
Mrs. Wray?"

"I've never thought about it, Mrs. Cheyne,"
said Camilla slowly.  "By fortune you mean
propinquity?"

"Oh, yes—and other things——" laughingly.
"For instance, if I had fallen in love with a man I
shouldn't stop to consider.  If he was another
woman's husband—say *your* husband, Mrs. Wray—that
would only add a new element of interest.
The more difficult an undertaking, the greater
satisfaction in the achievement."

Camilla looked at her steadily for a
moment.  "I've never thought that any man
ought to be dignified by such extraordinary effort.
A husband so easily won away is not worth
keeping."

The two women had only met once before.  They
both smiled, sweetly tolerant, their weapons politely
sheathed.  Only Cortland Bent, who knew the
hearts of both, sensed the difference between them.

"You're very flattering, Rita," he broke in,
"especially to the bipeds.  You've carefully
deprived us of every attribute but legs.  But we still
have those—and can run."

"But you don't," laughed Mrs. Cheyne.
"That's just the point.  You like the game—all
of you.  Even your legs aren't proof against
flattery."

"Stop, Rita," put in Betty Haviland.  "You're
letting out all the secrets of the craft."

"Come, Camilla," said Cortland, rising, "wouldn't
you like to see the horses and dogs?  It's not nearly
dark yet."

"Oh, yes," she cried gladly.  And then to her
host, "What am I to expect, Mr. Janney, silver feed
troughs and sterilized water?"

"Oh, no," said their host, "not yet.  But they're
worth it."

The pair made their way through the library
and a small corridor which led to the south portico.

"How do you like my cousin Rita?" Bent asked
when they were alone outside.

"Is she your cousin?"

"Through my mother—the Davidges.  Quite
wonderful, eh?"

"I don't like her.  You don't mind my saying so,
do you?"

"Not in the least.  She's not your sort, Camilla.
But then nobody ever takes Rita seriously.  She
doesn't want them to.  She's a spoiled darling.
Everybody pets her.  That bored kind of cleverness
is effective—but everybody knows she doesn't
mean half she says."

"I'd be sorry to think she meant anything she
says," severely.

Bent laughed.  "I'm afraid you're too sincere
for my crowd, Camilla."

"Who is Mr. Cheyne?" she asked suddenly.

"A perfectly amiable person with a bald head and
a passion for domesticity and music, both of which
Rita affects to despise."

"Why did she marry him then?"

"Nobody knows.  It was one of the marriages
that weren't made in Heaven, that's all."

"Few marriages are, but they're none the less
binding because of that."

"Yes, I know," he said soberly.

She recognized the minor note and turned the
subject quickly.

"What a heavenly spot!  These are the stables,
of course.  And the buildings beyond?"

"The kennels.  Mr. Janney has his own pack—corking
hounds.  They've been breeding this strain
a long while in England.  I suppose they're as good
as any in the world."

"I'm wild to see them."

The head groom met them at the door of the
carriage house and showed them through.  The
much despised touring car of the Havilands
occupied a negligible part of the great floor.  The
coach, brake, carryall, station wagons, victoria,
runabouts, and brake-carts—all in royal blue with
primrose running-gear—looked down with an
old-fashioned dignity and disapprobation on this
product of a new civilization.  The paneled walls of
the room were covered with sporting prints, and the
trophy room, with its cabinets of cups and ribbons,
bore eloquent testimony to Curtis Janney's success
at horse shows in every large city of the country.
In the stables Camilla lost all sense of restraint.  A
stable had never meant anything like this.  The
cement floors were spotless, and the long line of
stalls of polished wood with brass newels and fittings
shone like the silver in the drawing room.  The mats
and blankets were of blue, and each bore the
monogram of the owner in yellow.

"These are the coach and carriage horses, Camilla,"
Bent explained.

"Yes, ma'am," put in the groom.  "The
hunters are here," and he led the way to the box
stalls.

"Where is Mackinaw?  Mr. Janney promised
him to me for to-morrow."

"Oh, Mackinaw is right here, ma'am.  And a fine
bit of flesh he is."  He went in and threw off the
blanket, while Camilla followed.  "Not a blemish.
He'll take his four rails like they was two.  Just
give him his head, and you won't be far off when
they kill."

"Oh, what a darling!  I'm wild to get on him.  Is
he gentle?"

She patted him on the neck, and he nosed her
pocket for sugar.  One by one she saw them all,
and they reached the kennels in time for the
evening meal.

"Oh, well," she sighed as they turned back toward
the house, "I'm almost reconciled to riches.  One
could live in a place like this and forget there was
anything else in the world."

"Yes, perhaps some people might," he said
significantly.  "I couldn't, even if I wanted to.  The
only real joy in life is the memory of Saguache
Peak at sunset."

"Sunsets pass—they're symbols of the brevity
of things beautiful——"

"But the night is long," he murmured.  "So long,
and so dark."





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.. _`THE BRUSH`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   THE BRUSH

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Jeff Wray was learning many things.
The arrival of Lawrence Berkely on the
scene had at first seemed rather alarming.
Several wires in cipher before Larry reached New
York had apprised Jeff of an uncertain state of
mind in members of the directorate of the Denver
and Western Railroad Company.  Collins, Hardy,
and even Jim Noakes had been approached by
representatives of the Chicago and Utah with
flattering offers for their interests in the D. & W., and
Berkely reported them on the horns of a dilemma.
Collins and Hardy were big owners of land which
lay along the trunk line and were dependent on
that company for all facilities for moving their
wheat and other crops.  It had not always been
easy to get cars to haul their stuff to market, and
this fall they only got their hay and potatoes in by
a dispensation from the men higher up.  Noakes,
as Jeff well knew, owned stock in the through line,
but the showing of the Saguache Mountain
Development Company for the year had been so strong
that he had felt sure his associates would see the
importance of keeping their interests intact,
temporizing, where they could, with the Denver crowd,
who had it in their power to threaten his connections
at Saguache.

Mulrennan was wiring Jeff, too—copiously.  There
was an election pending in Kinney, and the
Denver crowd had advanced a candidate for judge
in opposition to the party with which Pete was
affiliated.  Other reports both in New York and
from the West indicated a strong pressure from the
East on the officers of the D. & W.  Berkely viewed
all these indications of a concerted movement against
Jeff's railroad with increasing dismay and lost no
time in giving him his opinion as to the possible
outcome of the raid.

But Jeff apparently was losing no sleep over the
situation.  He was fully aware that the whole
movement had originated in New York, and that
Cornelius Bent and his crowd were back of it.  He
knew, too, that the Amalgamated Reduction Company
wanted his new smelter.  Long ago he had foreseen
this possibility and had laid his own plans
accordingly.  The Denver and Saguache was his.  With
Noakes, Collins, and Hardy, he had a control of
the Denver and Western, but their possible defection,
which he had also foreseen, had made other plans
necessary.  Three months before he came East he
had unobtrusively secured through other persons
a right of way from Saguache to Pueblo, a distance
of one hundred and twenty miles.  The line of this
survey was well to the southward and would open
up a country occupied only by small settlers under
the Homestead laws.  He had turned the
organization of the Development Company loose for two
months on that vast tract of land, and had, at a
reasonably small expense, secured by purchase or
long-time options the most valuable land along his
new line.  His engineers were Germans, imported
for the work, who had no affiliations with other roads,
and his plans had so far worked out to a T.  He had
also worked out (on paper) an irrigation scheme for
the whole proposition.

At Pueblo the new road would connect with the
Denver and California, a line which had no
connection with the Chicago and Utah, and which had even
been recently engaged in a rate war with the other
roads to the coast.  Its officers were friendly, and
Wray's plans had all been worked out in their
confidence and with their approval.  Indeed, a good
part of his backing had been furnished by
capitalists in San Francisco.

Jeff felt sure that the first move to capture the
D. & W. was only a bluff, and in his conferences
with General Bent, Janney, and McIntyre, had
played a waiting game.  The "Daisy" was now a
producer—not a producer like the "Lone Tree"—but
it was paying, and the "Comet," a new prospect
that had been opened farther south, was doing a
business of a hundred to the ton.  His stamps were
working night and day, and the smelter was doing
its share in Wray's triumphant progress.  All his
other plans were working out, and the longer he
could wait the more formidable he could make
himself as an adversary.  He knew that the crux of the
situation was the ambition of the Amalgamated
Reduction Company.  They controlled every smelting
concern in three states, and Wray's big plant
was a thorn in their side.  By waiting, Jeff hoped
that he could make them show their hands, so he
made no attempt to force an issue, being content
to play the part they themselves had assigned him.
Their hospitality, his welcome into their exclusive
set, his use of their clubs (to two of which he had
been proposed for membership), the business
associations they were planning for him, did little to
convince Jeff of the sincerity of their attentions.  But
he acted the dupe with a good grace, with one eye
to windward, greatly amused at their friendliness,
which, while it failed to flatter, gave him an
increasing sense of the importance of his mission.
General Bent had intimated that within a week or
so he would be in a position to make a definite
proposition for his railroad, which, of course, meant
the absorption of Wray's plant into the Trust.
Financially, there were great possibilities in a friendly
association with these men.

They were closely in touch with No. — Broadway
and, if they chose, could point the way to power such
as he had never dreamed of.  But in his heart he
mistrusted them.  He thought of Mrs. Rumsen's
words of warning, and he knew that what she said
was true.  They would not spare him if he offered
them a chance which would give them a command
of the situation.  Well, they hadn't command of it
yet, and he knew he held some cards which they had
never seen.  If they continued to weave their web
as they had begun it, there would still be time to
side-step.

Meanwhile, he gave himself up to a thorough
enjoyment of the situation.  There was nothing he
liked better than a fight, and the fact that his
adversaries were formidable lent a zest to the
situation.  He reassured Larry, sent a lot of wires to
Mulrennan, took a few successful flyers in the
stock market (which went to show that his luck had
not yet turned), and spent his leisure moments in
a riding school uptown going over the jumps with
Camilla.

Curtis Janney's dinner table held nothing in
common with General Bent's.  The viands were
well cooked but not heavy; the wines of a lighter
variety, dry, for the most part, and sparkling; the
service deft and dignified but not austere.  The table
decorations were not made up of set-pieces from the
florists', but came from Janney's own conservatories
and were more in the way of colored embroideries
against the damask cloth.  General conversation
was, therefore, continuous, and every person at this
table could see and be seen by every other.  The
formality of the city seemed to be banished by
common consent, and Camilla, who went in with
Cortland Bent (a mischievous dispensation of Miss
Janney), felt very much at home in the frank, friendly
atmosphere.  Almost all the conversation, she
discovered, was of the "horsey" variety, at least at
Camilla's end of the table, where their host
presided, and, as she had never ridden to hounds
before, she seized the opportunity to acquaint herself
with the interesting details of the morning which
awaited her.

The Sunnybrook Hunt Club, she learned, was only
a mile away, but on certain days the Braebank
hounds were used and members of the Hunt Club
living in the vicinity added their numbers to the
field.  There were plenty of foxes, Mr. Janney
assured her, and to-morrow they were to draw a
cover over toward the Chelten Hills.  Mrs. Cheyne,
she heard, was thought to be the best horsewoman
in the county.  Her own country-place was but five
miles away, and, in spite of her boasted love of ease,
she was to be found at every Meet in the season,
no matter how early the hour.  To-morrow was to
be one of the big days of the year, Mr. Janney
informed Camilla, and all the farmers over whose
fields they hunted were invited to lunch after the
Meet, in the Long Gallery.

So when, in the early morning, after a light breakfast,
Mr. Janney's guests met on the terrace, it was
with a feeling of intense interest and excitement
that Camilla drew on her gloves and joined them.
Of the men, Curtis Janney, Worthington Rumsen,
and Billy Haviland wore the pink coats with gray
facings of Sunnybrook, while their host wore in
addition the velvet cap which distinguished him as
Master of the Hounds.  The hounds were already loose
on the great lawn, while the Huntsman and Whippers-in
rode among them.  The sun had not yet risen,
and the heavy frost which lay upon the lawns caught
the chill greenish opalescent tints of the dawn.
Mrs. Cheyne was already in the saddle, her hunter,
a lean, rangy boy, pirouetting and mouthing his
bits, eager to be off.  The Baroness Charny, dainty
and very modish in a dark green habit and silk
hat, was chatting gaily with Larry Berkely while
a groom adjusted her stirrup-leather.  Mrs. Haviland,
Wray, Perot, and her host were waiting for
their horses, which the men were bringing up from
the stables.  Curtis Janney came forward gaily
when Camilla appeared.

"We're all here, Mrs. Wray," he greeted her.
"The others will meet us at the Chelten
Crossroads.  Your horse is ready," and then, with a
glance at her habit, "You're riding across, I believe?"

She nodded.  "What a heavenly morning!"

"The conditions are perfect.  This white frost
will soften at sun-up.  We'll have a fine run.  Won't
you let me help you mount?"

They were all in the saddle in a few moments
and, walking their horses, with the Huntsman and
hounds in the lead, were soon on their way past
the big entrance gates.  Camilla saw Jeff draw
his horse alongside that of Mrs. Cheyne and
realized that the few days during which Lawrence
Berkely had been in the city had done much for
her husband's appearance.  She saw the look and
heard the laugh with which Mrs. Cheyne greeted
her husband and experienced, in spite of herself, a
sense of annoyance that Jeff continually showed a
preference for her company to that of any of the
other women of the party.  She knew that in her
heart it made no difference to her into whose hands
Jeff entrusted himself.  Mrs. Cheyne's languid air
of patronage had provoked her, and her pride
rebelled at the thought of any slight, however
thoughtless, at the hands of her husband.  But as Cortland
Bent came alongside of her, she realized that the
friendly relations of her husband and his feminine
partner might progress far on extravagantly
sentimental lines and still provide no just cause for
complaint.

If Mrs. Cheyne had any mental reservations,
her graceful back gave no sign of them.  She sat
her horse squarely, even a little stiffly, which brought
into contrast the easy, rather slouchy seat which
Jeff had learned on the plains.  But Wray was in
his element.  On a horse, at least, he felt himself
the equal of any one in the party and need ask no
favors or give any.  He examined Mrs. Cheyne's
costume curiously.  Her long coat was a mere
subterfuge, for beneath it she wore white breeches
like his own and patent leather boots.  Her hair
was done in a compact mass on the back of her head,
and her hat was held in place by a strong elastic
band.  The shoulders of her coat were square and
her manner easy.  He recalled the flowing feminine
lines of her costume at dinner the night before, and it
seemed difficult to appreciate that she was the same
person with whom he had talked so late in the
smoking room.

"Am I a freak?" she asked amiably, "or is there
a hiatus somewhere?  I dressed in a tearing
hurry—without a maid."

"Oh, no.  Only you're another kind of a person—on
the back of a horse."

"Am I?  How?"

"Last night you were all woman.  You and I
are making friends pretty fast, but I was a little
afraid of you."

"Why?"

"You're different at night, so sleepy and handsome,
like a rattler in the sun, the kind you hate to
wake up but must, to see how far he'll strike."

She laughed.  "I don't know whether I like that
or not.  And yet I think I do.  How am I different
to-day?"

"To-day you're only part woman.  The rest of
you is just kid.  If it wasn't for that knot of hair
I'd take you for a boy—a very nice, good-looking boy."

She looked up at him mischievously.  "You
know you have a faculty of saying unpleasant things
very pleasantly.  I'm glad I look youthful.  My
only horror is of growing old.  I don't think I like
the idea of your thinking me anything unfeminine."

He glanced frankly at her protruding knee.  "I
don't.  Most of you is woman all right—but you
don't scare me half as much this morning."

"Why should you be scared?  You haven't
struck me as being a man who could be scared at
anything."

"Not out here, but inside—in the drawing
room—you've got me at a disadvantage.  I'm new to
soft speeches, low lights, and the way you Eastern
women dress.  There's too much glamor.  I never
know whether you mean what you say or whether
it's all just a game—and I'm *It*."

She threw back her head and laughed with a
full throat.

"You dear, delicious, impossible creature!  Don't
you know that the world is a tangle of illusions,
and that you and I and everybody else were made
to help keep them tangled?  Nobody ever means
what he says.  Half of the joy in life consists in
making people think you different from what you are."

"Which are you?  The kid on the horse or the
woman—back there—last night?"

"Do you think I'll tell you?"

"No, I suppose not.  And it wouldn't help me
much if you're going to lie about it—I mean,"
he corrected, "if you're trying to keep me guessing."

"My poor, deluded friend, you wouldn't believe
me if I told you.  So what's the use.  For the
present," she added defiantly, "I'm the kid on the
horse."

"And I guess I'm *It*, all right," he laughed.

As they approached Chelten Hills they made out
at the cross-roads a number of figures on horseback.
The sun, a pale madder ball, had suddenly sprung
from behind the hills and painted with its rosy hues
the streaks of mist which hung in the valleys below
them.  As its shadows deepened and its glow turned
from pink to orange, the figures at the cross-roads
stood out in silhouette against the frosty meadows
beyond.  There were three women and at least a
dozen men, most of them wearing the club colors,
which took on added brilliancy as the sun emerged
from behind the distant hills.  A cloud of vapor
rose from the flanks of the horses.  There was much
"hallo-ing" and waving of riding crops as the
Huntsman and his hounds rode into their midst and the two
parties met.  A brief consultation, and the hounds
were sent down a narrow lane and across a wooden
bridge toward a patch of woods which darkened the
hillside half a mile away.

"We'll draw that cover first," said Curtis Janney.
"Perhaps we can coax the old Chelten Fox to come
out to-day."  It was the name they had given to an
old quarry of theirs, the elusive victor in half a
dozen runs in the last few years.

Cortland Bent had refused to relinquish his post
beside Camilla.  There seemed no reason why he
should, since Gretchen had so completely
appropriated Larry, and Jeff, Mrs. Cheyne.

"Be careful, Camilla," he was saying.  "You're
new at this game, and the going is none too safe."

But Camilla only smiled.  She looked forward
at Mrs. Cheyne's intolerant back, and there was a
joyous flash in her eyes like the one he remembered
two years ago when she led the chase of a coyote,
which she ran down and roped unaided.  She leaned
forward gaily and patted her horse's neck.

"We understand each other, don't we, Mackinaw?"

And then, as though to express her emancipation
from all earthly barriers, she gave her horse his head
in the pasture and followed a party which had
scorned the open gate.  Mackinaw took the three
rails like a bird and shook his head viciously when
Camilla restrained him.  Cortland followed her,
smiling, and in a moment they had all stopped at
the foot of the hill, while the hounds went forward
into the cover.

Janney had planned well.  They waited a while,
chatting among themselves, and then suddenly the
hounds gave tongue.  At the farther end of the cover,
taking a diagonal course across an old cornfield up
the hill, the old fox emerged, while the hounds,
getting the scent, followed hot-foot after him.

"Tally-ho!" was the cry from one of the whips,
and it echoed again and again the length of the field.
In a second they were off, Curtis Janney in the lead,
roaring some instructions which nobody understood.
Camilla, overanxious, cleared the brook at a bound
and won her way among the leaders.  Gretchen
Janney and Mrs. Cheyne, their horses well in hand,
were a little to the left, following the Master, whose
knowledge of the lay of the land foresaw that the
run would follow the ridge which farther on turned
to the eastward.  Camilla only knew that she must
ride straight, and went forward up the hill toward
the line of bushes around which the last hound had
disappeared.  Bent thundered after her, watching
her anxiously as she took the fence at the top of
the hill—a tall one—and landed safely in the
stubble beyond.

"Pull up a little, Camilla!" he shouted.  "You'll
blow him if you don't.  This may last all morning."

"I—I can't!" she cried.  "He's pulling me.
He doesn't want to stop, and neither do I."

"It's the twenty pounds of under weight—but
you'd better use your curb."

As they cleared the bushes they "viewed" again
from a distance the hounds running in a straight line,
skirting a pasture at the edge of a wood half a mile
away.  The field below to their left was now a thin
line of single horsemen or groups of twos and threes.
Behind Bent were Billy Haviland and the Baroness.
Down the hill they went, more carefully this time,
then up again over rocky ground dotted with pitfalls
of ice and snow which made the going hazardous.
Janney's crowd below on the level meadows was
forging ahead, but when Camilla reached the top of
the next hill she saw that, instead of surging toward
the river, the hounds were far away to the right in
open country and going very fast.  They reached
the road from the meadow just as Curtis Janney,
closely followed by Gretchen and Mrs. Cheyne,
Larry, and Jeff, came riding into the open.

"Have you 'viewed'?"

Cortland Bent pointed with his crop, and they
all saw the pack making for the woods and the trees
which lined the creek in the hollow beyond.  It
was a wide stretch of open country made up of half
a dozen fields and fences.  The short, sharp cry
of the hounds as they sighted the fox was music
to Camilla, but the roar of the wind in her ears and
the thunder of the horses' hoofs were sweeter.  It
was a race for the creek.  The Master, on his big
thoroughbred, was three lengths in the lead, but
Jeff, Mrs. Cheyne, and Camilla, just behind him,
were taking their jumps together.

At the third fence, for some reason, Mackinaw
refused, and, scarcely knowing how it had happened,
Camilla slid forward over his ears to the ground.
She was a little stunned, but managed to keep her
hold on the reins, and before Cortland Bent could
dismount she was on her feet again, her cheeks
a little pale, but in nowise injured.

"Are you hurt, Camilla?"

"No.  Help me up quickly, Cort."  She had seen
Jeff and Mrs. Cheyne draw rein a moment on the
other side of the fence, but, when she rose, ride on
together.  Jeff shouted something to her, but she
could not hear it.

"I didn't give him his head," Camilla stammered.
"I'll know better now."

"For God's sake, be careful," whispered Bent.

If she heard him she gave no sign of it, for, with her
face pale and her lips compressed, she made a wide
turn, and, before the rest of the field came up, she
had put Mackinaw at the jump again, giving him
his head and the crop on his flank just before he
rose to it.  The frightened animal cleared the rails
with two feet to spare and a good six feet on the
farther side, and, when Jeff turned at the bank of
the creek to look, he saw Mackinaw nobly clearing
the last fence that remained between them.

Camilla, her color coming slowly back, kept her
eyes fixed on the smart silk hat of Mrs. Cheyne.
The memory of Mrs. Cheyne's smile infuriated her.
Her manner was so superior, her equipment so
immaculate, her seat such a fine pattern of English
horsemanship.  The run was to be long, they said.
Perhaps there would still be time to show that she
could ride—as the boys in the West rode, for
every inch—for every pound.

Through the ford she dashed, with Cortland close
at her heels, the water deluging them both, up the
bank and over the rise of the hill, toward a patch of
bushes where the fox doubled and went straight
with the wind across the valley for the hills.  The
going was rougher here—boulders, stone walls,
and ploughed fields.  Camilla cut across the angle
and in a moment was riding beside her husband and
Mrs. Cheyne, who seemed to be setting the pace.

"Are you all right?" Jeff asked.  But she only
smiled at him and touched Mackinaw with her
heel.  She was riding confidently now, sure of
herself and surer of her horse.  They understood
each other, and Mackinaw responded nobly, for
when he found his place by the side of Rita Cheyne's
bay mare he sensed the will of his rider that here
was the horse that he must outstay.  The pace was
terrific, and once or twice Camilla felt the eyes
of the other woman upon her, but she rode joyously,
grimly, looking neither to left nor right, as she
realized that Mrs. Cheyne's mount was tiring and
that Mackinaw seemed to be gaining strength at
every jump.

The old Chelten Fox gained immortality that day.
Twice the foremost hounds were snapping at his
very heels, when, from some hidden source of energy,
he drew another store and ran away from them,
doubling through the brush and throwing them off
the scent, which they recovered only when he had
put a safe distance between them.  Camilla had lost
her hat, her hair had fallen about her shoulders, and
a thorn had gashed her cheek.  The pace was telling
on Mackinaw, whose stride was not so long or his
jumps so powerful, but Mrs. Cheyne still rode
beside her, her face a little paler than before, but her
seat as firm—her hands as light as ever.  If there
were any other riders near them, both women were
oblivious, seeing nothing but the blur of the flying
turf beneath them, hearing nothing but the sharp
note of the hounds in front, which told that the chase
was nearly ended.

Before them was a lane with two fences of four
rails, an "in and out," with a low "take off" from
the meadow.  Camilla rose in her stirrups to look
and saw that Mrs. Cheyne had drawn rein.  It was
a jump which would tax the mettle of fresher
animals.  With a smile on her face which might have
been a counterfeit of the one Mrs. Cheyne had worn
earlier in the morning, Camilla turned in her saddle,
catching the eye of her companion, and pointed
with her crop straight before her to where the hounds
had "killed" in the meadow just beyond, then set
Mackinaw for the highest panel she could find.

"Come on, Mrs. Cheyne!" she cried hoarsely.
"Come on!"

Mackinaw breasted the fence and reached the
road—a pause of a second until Camilla's spurs
sank into his flanks, when, mad with pain, he leaped
forward into the air, just clearing the other fence
and the ditch that lay on the farther side.  Camilla
pulled up sharply as the Huntsman dismounted
and made his way among the dogs.  Turning, she
saw Mrs. Cheyne's horse rise awkwardly from the
lane and go crashing through the fence, breaking
the top rail and landing in the ditch.  Its rider,
thrown forward out of the saddle, landed heavily
and then rolled to one side and lay quiet.

.. _`"Turning, she saw Mrs. Cheyne's horse go crashing through the fence."`:

.. figure:: images/img-114.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "Turning, she saw Mrs. Cheyne's horse go crashing through the fence."

   "Turning, she saw Mrs. Cheyne's horse go crashing through the fence."

With a quick cry of dismay, Camilla dismounted,
conscience-stricken, and ran to her fallen foe, just
as the others rode up and caught the frightened
horse.

"Dear Mrs. Cheyne," she heard herself saying,
"I'm so sorry.  Are you really badly hurt?"  But
the only reply she got was a feeble shake of the
head.  Curtis Janney brought out a brandy flask, and,
after a sip or two, Mrs. Cheyne revived and looked
about her.

"I'm all here, I think," she said.  "That was a
bad cropper—in my own barnyard, too—the
Brush must be yours, Mrs. Wray.  Give me a
cigarette, somebody."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SHADOW`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SHADOW

.. vspace:: 2

Mrs. Cheyne's farmhands and stablemen
came running and took the horses of those
who dismounted; and Mrs. Cheyne, after
examining herself to see that no bones were broken,
led the way, stiffly but without assistance, to the
house.  Camilla, still a little bewildered, saw
Mackinaw led off to the stable for a rub-down.
The Master of the Hounds was the first to
congratulate her.

"Here is your Brush, Mrs. Wray.  You've filled
every woman's heart with envy.  To be in at the
death of the old Chelten Fox is an achievement.
You had a fall.  Are you injured?"

"I believe not," she said.  "Mackinaw is a
darling.  I hope he's sound?" she inquired anxiously.

"As a bell," he said generously.  "He's got
the heart of an ox.  You know"—he laughed and
whispered—"I bought him from Mrs. Cheyne,
and to-day you've vindicated me."

Others came up, men of the Hunt Club, and asked
to be presented, and Camilla, enjoying her triumph,
followed the party to the house.

Mrs. Cheyne's house differed in character from
that of the Janneys.  It was snugly built in a pocket
of the hills, facing to the south.  The original
building, square and massive, dated from the early
eighteenth century, but two symmetrical wings at
the sides had greatly increased its original size.
Large pillars and a portico gave the graceful lines
which the addition demanded.  The wide stair
hall which ran from front to back had not been
altered, and the furniture and hangings rigidly
preserved the ancient atmosphere.

The surprised butler and his assistant hurriedly
prepared hot Scotches and toddy, and the halls and
large rooms on the lower floor were soon filled with
the swaggering company—all talking at once,
each with his tale of luck or misfortune.

It was not until Camilla was gratefully enthroned
in a big chair by the open fireplace that Cortland
Bent found a chance to speak to her.

"What possessed you, Camilla?  You rode like
a demon.  You've dragged poor Rita's pride in the
mire.  Riding is her long suit.  She's not used to
yielding her laurels as she did to-day.  I fancy she's
not at all happy about it."

"Why?" asked Camilla, wonderingly.

"You don't know Rita as I do.  She runs things
out here pretty much in her own way."  He chuckled
quietly.  "Good Lord, but you did put it over her."

"I'm sorry if she feels badly about it," she put
in mendaciously.

"There's nothing to be sorry about.  You won
out against odds on a horse she'd thrown into the
discard.  That doesn't make her feel any sweeter.
She's a queer one.  There's no telling how she'll
take things.  But she doesn't like being the under
dog, and she won't forget this soon."

"Neither will I," said Camilla, smiling to herself.
"She scored one on me yesterday, but I fancy our
accounts are about even."

"Yes, they are.  I suppose there's no use warning you."

"No, there isn't, Cort.  I fancy I'll be able to
look out for myself."

He examined her keenly and realized that she
was looking at Jeff, who stood with some men at
the end of the room toasting their hostess.  He
seemed to have forgotten Camilla's existence.
In the field before they came into the house Jeff
had spoken to her, and when Janney had given
Camilla the Brush, Jeff had congratulated her
noisily and with the heartiness and enthusiasm he
always showed over things which reflected credit
on himself.  In their private life Jeff still stood a
little in awe of Camilla.  He realized that his many
deficiencies put him at a disadvantage with a woman
of her stamp, and, no matter what he felt, he had
never asked more of her in the way of companionship
than she had been willing to give him ungrudgingly;
he was tolerant of her literary moods, her
music, her love of pictures, and the many things he
could not understand.  She was the only cultured
woman he had ever known, and his marriage had
done little to change his way of thinking of her.
Camilla had not meant to abide forever in the shrine
in which Jeff had enthroned her.

In the earlier days of their married life she had
been willing to sit enshrined because it had been
the easiest way to conceal the actual state of her
own mind; because it had come to be a habit with
her—and with him to behold her there.  Their
pilgrimage to New York had made a difference.
It was not easy for Camilla to define it just yet.
He was a little easier in his ways with her, regarded
her inaccessibility a little less seriously, and
questioned by his demeanor rather than by any spoken
words matters which had long been taken for
granted by them both.  He had made no overt
declaration of independence and, in his way, gave
her opinions the same respect he had always given
them.  The difference, if anything, had been in
the different way in which they viewed from the
very same angle the great world of affairs.  Men,
as Jeff had always known, were much the same
all the world over, but, curiously enough, he had
never seen fit to apply any rule to its women.  It was
flattery, indeed, for him to have believed for so
long that, because Camilla was cultured, all cultured
women must be like Camilla.  His wife realized
that Jeff's discovery of Mrs. Cheyne was requiring
a readjustment of all his early ideas.  And so,
while she spoke lightly of Mrs. Cheyne to Cortland
Bent, in her heart she was aware that if the lady
took it into her pretty head to use Jeff as a weapon
she might herself be put upon the defensive.

It seemed as though Cortland had an intuition
of what was passing in her mind.

"If there's any way in which I can be of service,"
he ventured.

"Oh, yes, Cort," she laughed.  "I'll call on you.
The only thing I ask of you now is—not to fall in
love with Mrs. Cheyne."

"Rita?  I'd as soon think of falling in love with
a kaleidoscope.  Besides——"

But she laid restraining fingers on his arm.

"Tell me about Gretchen," she interrupted quickly.

"There's nothing to tell, except," he said with a
sigh, "that she's quite gone on Larry."

"You can't mean it?"

"Really—she told me so."

Camilla glanced toward the hall where the two
young people were sitting in the big haircloth sofa
engaged in a harmless investigation of the science
of palmistry.

Camilla laughed.  "It really looks so, doesn't it?
I am sorry, though.  I had begun to look on Miss
Janney as one of the solutions of our difficulty."

"There isn't any solution of it—not that way—you
must take my word for it.  Gretchen and I
understand each other perfectly.  If I can do
anything to help Lawrence Berkely with her, I'll do it."

"Oh, you're quite hopeless, Cort," she sighed,
"and I have no patience with Larry.  I can't see
why he doesn't mind his own business."

Bent glanced at the young couple in the hall.
"He seems to me to be doing *that* tolerably well."  He
leaned forward so that his tone, though lowered,
could be heard distinctly.

"There is another solution.  Perhaps you had
not thought of it."  She turned her head quickly
and searched his face for a meaning.  For reply
he coolly turned his gaze in the direction of Jeff
and Mrs. Cheyne, who had withdrawn into an
embrasure of one of the windows.

"A solution——" she stammered.

"Yes, a way out—for both of us."

"You mean Jeff—and Mrs. Cheyne?" she whispered.

"I do."

The poison of his suggestion flowed slowly through
her mind, like a drug which stimulates and stupefies
at the same time.

"You mean that I should allow Jeff—that I
should connive in his——"  She stopped,
horror-stricken.  "Oh, Cort, that was unworthy of you,"
she whispered.

"I mean it.  They're well met—those two,"
he finished viciously.

Camilla held up her fingers pleadingly.  "Don't
speak.  I forbid you."  And, rising, she took up
her gloves and crop from the table.  "Besides,"
she said more lightly, "I have a suspicion that you
are trying to stir up a tempest in a teapot."

"Do you mean you haven't noticed?" he insisted.
"At my father's?  At the Warringtons'?  Last
night at the Janneys'?"

"No," she replied carelessly, "I hadn't noticed."

Curtis Janney, who had been moving fussily
from one group to another, came forward as he saw
Camilla rise.

"I was hoping we might still get another short
run, but I suppose you're too tired, Mrs. Wray?"

"A little—but don't let me interfere.  I think
I can find my way back."

He looked at his watch.  "Hello!  It's time we
were off anyway.  The other guests will be eating
all our breakfast.  Come, Cort, Gretchen,
Mrs. Cheyne—you know you're my guest still," strolling
from group to group and ruthlessly breaking up the
tête-a-têtes so successfully that Rita Cheyne rebelled.

"You're a very disagreeable person, Mr. Janney—Ivywild
resents it.  You're trying to form the
hospitality of the county into one of those horrid
trusts.  Every time accident throws the hunt my
way you insist on dragging it off to Braebank.  It
isn't fair.  Of course, if you insist——"

And then, crossing to Camilla, "*Dear* Mrs. Wray,
I'm borrowing your husband for a while.  I feel
a little tired, so he promised to lunch with me here
and go on to Braebank later.  You don't mind, do you?"

"Not in the least, my *dear* Mrs. Cheyne.  I'm
*so* sorry you feel badly."  And then to her husband,
"Remember, Jeff, Mr. Janney expects you later."  Each
spoke effusively, the tips of their fingers just
touching.  Then Mrs. Cheyne followed her visitors
to the door.

Outside a coach-horn was blowing, and, as they
emerged upon the porch the Janney brake arrived,
tooled by the coachman and bearing aloft Mrs. Rumsen,
General Bent, and Gladys, who had arrived
from town on the morning train.  But they would
not get down, and the cavalcade soon wound its
way along the drive, leaving Jeff and Mrs. Cheyne
waving them a good-by from the steps.

Camilla took the road thoughtfully.  It was the
first time in their brief social career that Jeff had
not consulted her before he made his own plans.
She did not blame him altogether, for she knew that
Jeff's inexperience made him singularly vulnerable
to the arts of a woman of the type of Mrs. Cheyne,
who, for want of any better occupation in life, had
come to consider all men her lawful prey.  Camilla
knew that mild flirtations were the rule rather than
the exception in this gay world where idle people
caught at anything which put to flight the insistent
demon of weariness and boredom.  And she discovered
that it was a part of the diversion of the
younger married couples to loan husbands and
wives to satisfy the light fancy of the hour.
All this was a part of the fabric in which
she and Jeff were living and endangered society
only when the women were weak and the men
vicious.  But Jeff somehow didn't seem to fit
into the picture.  His personality she had learned
to associate with significant achievements.  His
faults, as well as his virtues, were big, and he had
a habit of scorning lesser sins.  The pleasure of a
mild flirtation such as his brothers of the city might
indulge in for the mere delight of the society of a
woman would offer nothing to Jeff, who was not in
the habit of doing anything mildly or by halves.
Camilla knew him better than Mrs. Cheyne did.

Of course, no one thought anything of his new
interest in Mrs. Cheyne.  All of the younger men
were interested in Mrs. Cheyne at one time or
another, and it was doubtful if people had even
noticed his attentions.  Cortland had, but there
was a reason for that.  Anything that could
discredit Jeff in her eyes was meat and drink to him.
But it was cruel of Cortland to take advantage
of her isolation, but how could she cut herself off
from Cort, when her husband, by the nature of the
situation, had thrown her so completely on his
mercies?  It seemed as though all the world was
conspiring to throw her with the one man whose
image she had promised her conscience she would
wipe from her heart.  He rode beside her now
remorselessly, proving by his silence more eloquently
the measure of his appreciation of the situation.
She felt that he, too, was entering the Valley of
Indecision, with the surer step of a dawning Hope,
while she faltered on the brink of the Slough of
Despond.

They had fallen well behind the others, and
followed a quiet lane bordered by a row of birch trees
which still clung tenaciously to the remnants of
their autumn finery.  At one side gushed a stream,
fed by the early snows, which sang musically of
the secrets of earth and sky.  There was no
indecision here.  Every twig, every painted stone, the
sky and breeze, spoke a message of blithe optimism.
All was right with the world, and if doubt crept
into the hearts of men it was because they were
deaf to the messages of Nature.  The spell of its
beauty fell on Camilla, too, and she found herself
smiling up at Cortland Bent.  There were many
things to be thankful for.

"Are you happy?" he asked.

"One can't be anything else on a day like this."

"You don't care then?"

"For what?  Oh, yes.  I have a natural interest
in the welfare of my husband.  But I think
Mrs. Cheyne is wasting her time."

"I think perhaps you underrate her," he muttered.

"I'd rather underrate Mrs. Cheyne than underrate
myself," proudly.

He was silent for a moment, flicking at the weeds
with his riding-crop.

"Mrs. Cheyne and you have nothing in common,
Camilla," he said.  "I'm afraid it isn't in you to
understand this crowd.  The set in which she and
I were brought up is a little world in itself.  The
things which happen outside of it are none of its
concern.  It doesn't care.  It has its own rules
and its own code of decency to which it makes its
members subscribe.  It is New York in miniature,
the essence, the cream of its vices, its virtues, and
its follies.  It lives like that poison-ivy along the
fence, stretching out its tendrils luxuriously in the
direction of the sun, moving along the line of least
resistance.  It does not care what newer growth it
stunts, what blossom learns to grow beneath its
shade, to fade and droop, perhaps to wither for lack
of air and sunlight——"

"And yet—there's Gretchen," she said, "and you."

He smiled almost gaily.  "Yes, there are many
Gretchens, thank God.  Girls with the clean, sound
vision of their sturdy forbears, whose mothers were
young when the city still felt the impress of its early
austerities."

"And you?" she repeated.

His brow darkened and he looked straight before him.

"What I am doesn't matter.  I was born and bred
in this atmosphere.  Isn't that enough?"

"It's enough that you survived—that you, too,
have a clean vision."

"No, that is not true," he said sharply.  "I
can't see clearly—I'm not sure that I want to see
clearly—not now."

"I won't believe that, Cort.  Back there at *her*
house you said something that was unworthy of you,
that showed me another side of your nature, the
dark side, like the shadowy places under the ivy.
I want you to forget that you ever said them—that
you ever thought them even."

"I can't," he muttered savagely.  "I *want* some
one to come between you—to make him suffer
what I am suffering—to place a distance between
you which nothing can ever repair."

"Some one has already come between us," she
said, gently.  "The one I have in mind is the Cort
Bent of Mesa City, who used to help me gather
columbines; who rode with me far up the trail to
get the last ray of the sunset when the valley below
was already asleep in the shadow; who shouted my
name in the gorge because he said it was sweet to
hear the mountains send back its echoes all silvered
over with the mystery of the Infinite; who told me
of palaces and gardens in lands which I had never
seen, and of the talented men and women who had
lived in them; who sang to me in the moonlight and
taught me to dream——"

"Don't, Camilla——"

"That was a boy I remember, who lived years
and years ago when I was rich—rich in innocent
visions which he did nothing to destroy.  It was he
who gave me an idea that there were men who
differed from those I had known before—men in
whose hearts was tenderness and in whose minds
one might find a mirror for one's harmless
aspirations toward a life that wasn't all material and
commonplace.  He was my knight, that boy,
thoughtful, considerate, and gentle.  He was foolish
sometimes, but I loved him because his ideals had
not been destroyed."

"I lied to you.  Life is a cinder."

She shook her head.  "No, you did not lie to
me—not then.  Later you did when you asked me
to come to New York.  Oh, I know.  I can see more
clearly now.  Suppose that even now I chose what
you call your solution of the tangle we've made of
things.  You'd like to see Jeff desert me for Rita
Cheyne so that you could have your own way with
me now."

"Camilla!  I was mad then.  I thought you
understood.  Gretchen and I——"

"I understand many things better than I did,"
she interrupted.  "You were no more mad then
than you are now.  I think I have always been
willing to forgive you for that.  I wanted to
forgive you because I thought perhaps you didn't
know what you were saying.  But you make it
harder for me now.  The boy I knew in the West is
dead, Cortland.  In his place rides a man I do not
know, a man with a shadow in his eyes, a man of
the gay world, which moves along the line of least
resistance, with little room in his heart for the
troubles of the woman he once offered to protect
with his life."

"I would still protect you—that is what I am
offering."

"How?  By making me a woman like Rita
Cheyne, who changes her husbands as though they
were fashions in parasols.  You offer me protection
from Jeff.  I refuse it."  And then she added a
little haughtily, "I'm not sure that I need any
protection."

He glowered toward her, searching her face sullenly.

"You love him?" he muttered.

She smiled a little proudly.  "I can't love you
both.  Jeff is my husband."

"You love him?" he repeated.  "Answer me!"

"Not when you take that tone.  I'll answer you
nothing.  Come, we had better ride forward."  And,
before he could restrain her, she had urged
her horse into a canter.

"Camilla!" he called.

But before he could reach her she had joined the
others, outside the gates of Braebank.





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.. _`TRITON OF THE MINNOWS`:

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   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   TRITON OF THE MINNOWS

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Janney's breakfast guests had gone,
and, having seen the last of the country
wagons depart, he went into the office next
to the smoking room, where Cornelius Bent sat
awaiting him.  Curtis Janney brought a sheaf
of telegrams and letters which he laid on
the desk.  Then he opened a humidor, offered
his guest a cigar, took one himself, and sat down.

"Well, what did you hear?" asked General Bent.
Janney took a puff or two at his cigar, then frowned
at the papers on the table.

"A great deal," he muttered, "both bad and
good.  I have here reports for the whole week from
our men in Denver, Pueblo, Kinney, and Saguache.
The pressure from Abington and the Chicago and
Utah has finally brought Noakes into line.  It was
something of a job, for he's tied up in one of Wray's
development companies, and it has cost some
money.  Abington had to give him a big bonus for
the stock in the Denver and Western.  Collins and
Hardy came around all right, and it only remains
to put the screws on to make Wray show his hand."

"Have you decided on that?" asked the General.

"No, I haven't."

Curtis Janney took up a letter which he had
separated from the others.

"You remember we thought his planning this new
line to Pueblo was financial suicide and that, if we
gave Wray enough rope, he'd hang himself.  We
didn't even see the use of throwing the usual
impediments in the way."

Bent nodded.

"Well, they're building it."

"It's only a bluff."

"I'm not so sure.  My last reports show that
the money is in the treasury—some of it is Wray's,
but most of it has come from Utah, California,
and Washington even.  The Denver and California
is backing the whole project, and tent towns are
springing up along the line of the survey.  Those
people out there believe in Wray and are following
him like sheep."

"They wouldn't follow him long if we found a
way to stop him," said the General grimly.  "I've
seen those stampedes before, but they always come
to an end.  What does Lamson report?"

"The Denver and California seems set on this
thing—the more so as it promises to be a success
without much help from them."

General Bent got up and paced the floor with
quick, nervous strides.

"Why, Curtis," he said, "you seem to see
unusual trouble in the way.  The case presents no
greater difficulties than the Seemuller plant did,
or the Myers and Ott, but we got them both in
the end."

"There is a difference."

"Where?"

"The man himself.  He'll fight to the last ditch.
That jaw wasn't given him altogether as an
ornament.  I'm sorry we can't find his weak point.
A man who looks as far ahead as he does is a good
one to tie to."

"But he may not want any strings on him.  The
other night at dinner at my house he was boasting
of his independence.  He didn't know how hot it
made me."

"Yes, he did.  That's why he did it.  He said
the same thing here yesterday.  But I wasn't
deceived.  It was all a part of his game.  I think
in a game of bluff he can make old gamesters like
you and me sit up and do some guessing."  Janney
knocked the ash from his cigar and laughed.

"Cornelius, our fine scheme hasn't worked out—not
so far.  When Wray first came in the office,
you sized him up as a social climber.  But, if you
think we are going to bewilder him by our clubs,
the opera, and social connections, you're reckoning
without your host."

General Bent smiled tolerantly.

"He assimilates surprisingly well," he said with
a reflective nod.  "For all his Western manner,
he never gives the impression of being ill-at-ease.
I'll say that for him.  Why, do you know, I strolled
in on Caroline the other afternoon on my way
uptown and found him teaching her how to play
pinochle."

"Mrs. Rumsen?"

"Yes.  She'll be making him the rage before
the winter is out.  But he takes it all as a matter
of course.  Indeed, I think he fancies himself our
equal in any matter."  He paused and then rose.
"But he must prove that.  The Amalgamated
must own that smelter."

"Oh, yes," said Janney, following him with his
eyes.  "It will, of course.  We can't have him
underbidding us.  It's lucky he hasn't tried it yet.
But that's the danger from a man with both ability
and ambition.  And we can't run the risk of letting
him get too far."

There was a silence of some moments, which
Cornelius Bent improved by running over the
correspondence.  When he had finished he tossed the
letters abruptly on the table, and walked to the
window.  "Poor Cort," he muttered, "he lost
us the whole thing.  I wonder what's the matter
with that boy.  He always seems to miss it
somehow.  I can never make a business man of
him—like you or myself—or like Jeff Wray."

"He's cost us a pretty penny," growled Janney.

The General still stood by the window, his chin
deep in his chest, his long fingers twitching behind
his back.

"Jeff Wray must pay for that, Curtis.  If we
can't beat him in one way we must choose another.
Jeff Wray stole the 'Lone Tree.'  He trespassed on
our property in the dead of the night, did violence
to one of our employes, and bluffed Cort into
signing that lease.  If there was any law in the
state of Colorado, he'd be serving his term at Cañon
City.  But I'll get him yet!  I will, by God!  If
he'd come in this office now and hold you up for the
money in your safe he'd be a thief.  What is the
difference?"

"Just this: He was successful, and he left no
loose ends behind him."

"I've thought at times, Janney, that you lack
some interest in this fight."

"Why?  Because I take the precaution to get
all the information I can—and because my
information turns out to be unfavorable to our plans?
You want to crush Wray.  Very well.  I have no
objections.  Crush him if you can.  But it would
hardly do to let him crush *us*."

Bent turned and examined his host curiously.
Then he laughed.  It wasn't pretty laughter, and it
cracked dryly, like the sound of a creaking door.

"Upon my word, Curtis, you amaze me," he said.

"Very well," put in Janney coolly.  "But think
it over.  Don't be hasty.  If he puts that road
through and starts the game of underbidding on the
raw product, we'll be in for a long fight—and
an expensive one.  I don't think the Company
wants that now.  McIntyre doesn't, I know.  And
Warrington, as usual, is for temporizing."

"Temporizing?"  Cornelius Bent's jaws snapped
viciously.  "This is not a case where personal
preferences can be considered.  There's a great
principle involved.  Are we going to let an upstart
like Jeff Wray—a petty real estate operator from
an obscure Western town—come into our field with
a few stolen millions and destroy the plans of an
organized business which controls the output of
practically all the great gold-producing
states—a company whose sound methods have brought
order out of chaos, have given employment to an
army of people; whose patents have simplified
processes, reduced the cost of production, and kept the
price of the metal where it is satisfactory both to
the mines and the market?  Are we going to see all
this jeopardized by a wild-catter, a tin-horn gambler,
a fellow with neither decency nor moral principle?
Temporize like Warrington if you like, but the
Board of the Amalgamated must make a fight for
the Wray smelter—or accept my resignation."

Bent stalked the floor swiftly, biting off the ends
of his sentences as though they were parts of Wray's
anatomy, clenching his fingers as he might have
done had they encircled Wray's neck.  Curtis
Janney followed him with his gaze, his brows
tangled and his lips compressed, aware of the seriousness
of the situation.  The resignation of Cornelius
Bent from the Board of the Amalgamated was a
contingency not for a moment to be considered.

"That, of course, is impossible," he said.  "We're
all behind you to a dollar if you take that stand.  But
couldn't it be wise to have Wray in and talk to
him?  We might learn something that's not on the
cards."

"Oh, yes, if you like," growled the General,
"but you're wasting time.  I've got my idea of
what that property is worth.  I'll make him the
offer.  If he refuses"—and his lower jaw
worked forward—"it will be war—to the last
ditch."

Curtis Janney pressed a bell, and a servant
appeared.

"Has Mr. Wray returned?"

"Yes, sir," said the man.

"Tell him General Bent would like to see him here."

The man departed, and General Bent with an
effort relaxed the muscles of his face and sat.  Both
gentlemen looked up quickly when the servant
returned a few moments later.

"I delivered your message, sir," he said.  "Mr. Wray
asked me to say that he is engaged at the
present moment and will join you later."

General Bent's brows drew together angrily, but
Janney inquired suavely, "Where did you find him,
Carey?"

"In the conservatory, sir, with Mrs. Cheyne."

Janney smiled, but suppressed Bent's sudden
exclamation with a wave of the hand.

"You may bring in the whisky, then tell him
that General Bent and I will await his convenience."

"Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir."

"Confound his impudence!" muttered the General,
biting at his lip.

"All for effect, Cornelius," said Janney.  "That
fellow is an artist.  He's saving his face for the
ordeal."

"Let him save his neck," sneered Bent.

Janney stretched his legs forward and smoked
comfortably.  "Break it if you like, Cornelius,"
he said.  "I can't, you know, so long as he's my
guest."

Wray sauntered in some moments later,
accompanied by Rita Cheyne.  General Bent looked
up with a scowl, which the lady's gay assurance
failed to dismiss.

"May I come in, too?" she asked.  "I'm wild
to hear how big men talk business.  Won't you let
me, Cousin Cornelius?  I'm positively thirsty for
knowledge—business knowledge.  You' don't mind,
do you, Mr. Janney?"

"You can't be interested."

Wray laughed.  "I'm the original woolly Western
lamb being led to the shearing, Mrs. Cheyne——"

"The golden fleece!" she put in.  "I know.  But
I'm not going to allow it.  You're not going to
let them—are you, Jeff Wray?"

"I never knew a lamb that had any opinions on
the matter," he said easily.

The General got to his feet testily.

"Rita, this won't do at all.  We wanted to speak
to Wray privately——"

"Oh!  You needn't mind me.  I'm positively
bursting with other people's confidences.  But I'm
really the soul of discretion.  Please let me stay."  She
went over to Curtis Janney and laid her hands
on his shoulders appealingly.  "I'll sell you
Jack-in-the-Box if you will, Mr. Janney," she said.  "You
know you've wanted that horse all season."

Janney laughed.  "That's a great temptation—but
this isn't my affair," and he glanced at General
Bent, who stood frowning at them from the window.

"Leave the room at once, Rita!" said the General
sternly.  "You're interfering here.  Can't you
see——?"

Mrs. Cheyne dropped her hands.

"Oh, if you take that tone, of course."  She
moved toward the door, turning with her hand on
the knob—"I think you're horrid—both of
you.  I hope your lamb turns out to be a lion, and
eats you up."  And, with a laugh and a toss of her
head, she went out, banging the door behind her.

Jeff Wray and Curtis Janney laughed, but the
frown on General Bent's face had not relaxed for
an instant.  When the door had closed he sat down
in his chair again, while Janney offered cigars.  Jeff
took one with a sudden serious air, meant perhaps
as a tribute to the attitude and years of his fellow
guest.

Curtis Janney, looking from one to the other,
searched each face for signs of doubt or
indetermination and found in each the same deeply set
eyes, straight brow, firm, thin mouth, square jaw,
and heavy chin which he recognized as belonging
to those of this world who know how to fight and
who do not know when they are beaten.  Wray's
features were heavier, the lines in the General's
face more deeply bitten by the acid of Time, but
their features were so much alike that, had Janney
not known the thing was impossible, it might have
been easy to imagine some kind of collateral or
even more intimate family relationship.

"You asked me to come here," said Wray, easily
apologetic.  "What can I do for you, General Bent?"

Bent's deeply set eyes were hidden under his
bushy eyebrows, but the lips which held his cigar
were flickering in a smile.

"Yes," he began with a slow, distinct enunciation,
which Wray recognized at once as belonging
to his office downtown, "I thought we might talk
a little business, if Mr. Janney doesn't object."

"Not in the least," said Janney, "but there's no
reason why we shouldn't mix in a little of the Old
Thorne," and he handed the decanter to Wray.
Cornelius Bent refused.

"Wray," he went on, "we've been talking about
your plant down in the Valley.  From all we've
been able to find out, it's a pretty good proposition
in a small way.  But the Amalgamated Reduction
Company has no special interest in acquiring it.
That mountain range, in our judgment, will never
be a big producer.  The 'Lone Tree' is the kind of
an exception that one finds only once in a lifetime."

"And yet we're running on full time," said Wray,
with an odd smile.  "If the other mines keep up
their promise we won't need to buy any more
ore, General."

"The mountains of the West are full of holes that
once were promising, Wray—like notes of hand—but
they've long since gone to protest."

Jeff's chin tipped upward the fraction of an inch.
"I'm endorsing these notes, General.  Besides,"
he added suavely, "you know I'm not overanxious
to sell.  When I came into your office it was only
with the hope that I might establish friendly
relations.  That, I'm glad to say, I succeeded in doing.
Your health, Mr. Janney."

General Bent refused to be disarmed.  "Yes,
I know.  But friendship and business are two
things.  Commercially you are in the attitude of a
rival of the company I represent.  Of
course"—opulently—"not a serious rival, but one who must
logically be considered in our plans.  We didn't
like your building that smelter, and you could have
brought your ore at a fair price to one of our plants
in Pueblo or Colorado Springs."

"Yes—but that interfered with my own plans,"
said Jeff.  "And I have had them a long time."

"It's a little late to talk about that," assented
Bent.  "The plant is there, the mines are there,
and——"

"Yes.  But I don't see how they need bother
you.  Most of the gold we send to market comes
from the 'Lone Tree.'  I haven't handled any ore
below your prices—not yet."

There was, if possible, the slightest accent on the
last words, but Wray uttered them with a sweet
complacency which failed to deceive.  This young
fool was threatening—actually threatening the
mighty Smelting Trust.  It was so preposterous
that General Bent actually laughed—a thing he
seldom did below Twenty-third Street or when he
talked business elsewhere.

"No," he said grimly.  "I'm glad that didn't
seem necessary.  It would have been a pity.  See
here, Wray"—he leaned forward, his face drawn
in decisive lines—"let's get to the point.  We've
both been dodging it very consistently for a month.
You've got some property that may be useful to
us.  We've thought enough about it at least to
make a few inquiries about the whole situation—and
about you.  We could take that plant under
our own management and do a little better than
you could.  I don't think the location really
warrants it—for the big mine may stop paying any day
and the railroad facilities, you'll admit, are not of
the best.  But, if you're willing to sell out at a
moderate figure, we might buy it.  Or, perhaps,
you'd like to come in with us and take stock in the
Company.  We think a good deal of your ability.
There isn't any doubt that you could make yourself
useful to us if you chose."

"Thanks," said Jeff, with a sip at his Scotch, and
then looked out of the window.  He had caught
the meaning of General Bent's casual remark about
the railroad facilities.

"Of course," Bent went on, "I don't care to show
improper curiosity about your plans, but if you are
willing to meet me in a friendly spirit we might reach
an agreement that would be profitable both to your
companies and mine."

"I'd rather think it was interest than curiosity,"
said Wray with a smile.  "But, unfortunately, I
haven't got any plans—further than to get
all the ore I can out of 'Lone Tree' and to keep
my works busy.  Just now I'm pretty happy the
way things are going.  I've screwed the lid
down, and I'm sitting on it, besides—with one
eye peeled for the fellow with the screw driver."

Cornelius Bent controlled his anger with difficulty.
His equality with Jeff, as a guest of Curtis Janney,
gave Wray some advantages.  The easy good
nature with which he faced the situation and his
amused indifference to the danger which threatened
him put the burden of proof on the General, who
experienced the feelings of an emperor who has
been jovially poked in the ribs by the least of his
subjects.  This was *lèse majesté*.  Wray was either
a fool or a madman.

"Has it never occurred to you, Wray," snapped
Bent, "that somebody might come along with an axe?"

"Er—no.  I hadn't thought of that," he replied
quietly.

"Well, think it over.  It's worth your while."

"Is this a declaration of war?"

"Oh, no," hastily, "merely a movement for peace."

Wray took a few puffs at his cigar and looked from
Janney to the General, like a man on whom some
great truth had suddenly dawned.

"I had no idea," he said, with a skillfully assumed
expression of wonder, "that the Amalgamated was
so desperately anxious as this."

In drawing aside the curtain, he had still managed
to retain his tactical advantage.  Both older men
felt it—Bent more than Janney, because it was
he who had shown their hand, while Wray's cards
were still unread.

The natural response was tolerant amusement, and
both of them made it.

"Anxious?" laughed Bent.  "Is the lion anxious
when the wolf comes prowling in his jungle?
Success has twisted your perspective, my dear Wray.
The Amalgamated is not anxious—it has, however,
a natural interest in the financial health of its
competitors."

"But I'm *not* a competitor.  That's just the
point.  I'm governed by *your* methods, *your* plans,
*your* prices.  I've been pretty careful about that.
No, *sir*, I know better than to look for trouble with
the Amalgamated."

"One moment, Wray," put in Janney; "we don't
seem to be getting anywhere.  Let's simplify
matters.  We can get along without your plant,
but if we wanted to buy, what would you want
for it?"

"Do you mean the smelter—or all my interests
in the Valley?" asked Wray quickly.

"The smelter, of course—and the Denver and
Saguache Railroad."

"I don't care to sell—I've got other interests—my
Development Company, the coal mines and
lumber—they're all a part of the same thing,
Mr. Janney, like the limbs of my body—cut one off,
and I might bleed to death."

"We could give you traffic agreements."

"I'd rather not.  I'll sell—but only as a
whole—gold mines, coal, lumber, and all."

Wray caught General Bent's significant nod.

"That is my last word, gentlemen," he concluded firmly.

There was a silence, which Cornelius Bent broke
at last.

"And what is your figure, Mr. Wray?" he asked.

Jeff Wray reached for the match box, slowly
re-lit his cigar, which emitted clouds of smoke,
through which presently came his reply.  "You
gentlemen have been kind to me here in New York.
I want you to know that I appreciate it.  You've
shown me a side of life I never knew existed.  I like
the West, but I like New York, too.  I want to
build a house and spend my winters here—I wasn't
figuring on doing that just yet—but if you really
want my interests I'll sell them to you—without
reservation—every stick and stone of them for
thirty millions."

"Thirty millions?"

The voices of both men sounded as one, Janney's
frankly incredulous—Bent's satirical and vastly
unpleasant.

"Thirty millions!" Bent repeated with a sneer.
"Dollars or cents, Mr. Wray?"

Jeff turned and looked at him with the innocent
and somewhat vacuous stare which had learned its
utility in a great variety of services.  Jeff only meant
it as a disguise, but the General thought it impudent.

"Dollars, sir," said Jeff coolly.  "It will pay me
that—in time."

"In a thousand years," roared the General.
"The Amalgamated doesn't figure on millenniums,
Mr. Wray.  We don't want your other interests, but
we'll buy them—for five million dollars—in
cash—and not a cent more.  You can sell at that price
or—" the General did not see, or refused to see,
the warning glance from Janney—"or be wiped
off the map.  Is that clear?"

"I think so, sir," said Wray politely.  "Will you
excuse me, Mr. Janney?" and bowed himself out
of the room.





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.. _`DISCORD`:

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   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   DISCORD

.. vspace:: 2

That afternoon late, Berkely and the Wrays
returned to town, and the Western wires
tingled with Jeff's telegrams to Pueblo,
Kinney, and Mesa City.  He had burnt his bridges
behind him, and, like a skillful cavalry leader, was
picking out the vantage points in the enemy's
country.  The answers came slowly, but Wray
had planned his campaign before he left the West,
and the messages were satisfactory.  He realized
that his utility in New York, for the present at
least, was at an end, and he saw that he must soon
leave for the West to repair any possible break
in his line of communications.

Camilla learned of his intended departure with
mingled feelings.  Her husband's rather ostentatious
deference to Mrs. Cheyne had annoyed her.  She
knew in her heart that she had no right to cavil or
to criticise, and pride forbade that she should
question him.  Larry's presence at dinner precluded
personal discussions, and Camilla sat silent while
the men talked seriously of Jeff's business plans.
It had not been her husband's habit to discuss his
affairs with her, and, when the coffee was served,
he asked her coolly if she wouldn't rather be alone.

"Do you mind if I stay, Jeff?" she asked.  "I'd
like to hear, if you don't mind."

"I'd rather you wouldn't.  You can't be interested
in this—besides, the matter is rather
important and confidential."

She got up quickly.  Larry Berkely, who had
caught the expression in her eyes, opened the door
for her and followed her into the drawing room.

"Don't be annoyed, Camilla," he whispered.
"Jeff is worried.  You understand, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, I understand," she replied wearily.
"Don't mind me."

As the door closed behind him she stood irresolute
for a moment, then suddenly realized she had
been up since dawn and was very tired.  Her body
ached, and her muscles were sore, but the weariness
in her mind was greater than these.  The closing
of the dining-room door had robbed her of the
refuge she most needed.  She wanted to talk—to
hear them talk—anything that would banish her
own thoughts—anything that would straighten out
the disorderly tangle of her late impressions of the
new life and the people she had met in it.  She had
never thought of Jeff as sanctuary before, and
yet she now realized, when the support of his
strength was denied her, that in her heart she had
always more or less depended upon him for guidance.

And yet she feared him, too.  A while ago she had
been filled with horror at his share in the "Lone
Tree" affair, and since that time the knowledge had
haunted her.  But she had not dared to speak of
it to him.  She felt instinctively that this was one
of the matters upon the other side of the gulf that
had always yawned with more or less imminence
between them.  Their relations were none too
stable to risk a chance of further discord.  The
difference in his manner which she had noticed a
week or more ago had become more marked, and
to-night at the dinner table he had troubled less than
usual to disguise his lack of interest in her opinions.
The image of Cort was ever in her mind, and the
danger that threatened her seemed no less distant
than before, and yet she still hoped, as she had
always done, that something would happen—some
miracle, some psychological crisis which would
show her husband and herself the way to unity.
Since she had seen Cortland Bent, she had lost
some faith in herself, gained some fear of Jeff, whose
present attitude she was at a loss to understand,
but she still clung desperately to the tattered shreds
of their strange union, though lately even those
seemed less tangible.  To-night, when she had asked
him to take her West with him, he had refused
her impatiently—almost brusquely.

She went into her own rooms slowly and undressed.
As she sat before her mirror, the sight of the scratch
on her face recalled the incidents of the day.
Mrs. Cheyne!  Her lips drew together, her brows tangled
in thought, and she dismissed her maid, who had
come in to brush her hair.  What right had Jeff
to ignore her as he had done?  No matter what her
own shortcomings, in public, at least, she had
always shown him a proper respect and had never
in her heart dishonored him by an unworthy thought.
For one brief moment in Cortland Bent's arms she
had been swept from the shallows into deeper water,
but even then she had known, as she knew now,
that loyalty to Jeff had always been uppermost
in her thoughts.  They must have an understanding
before he went away.  She would not be left here
in New York alone.  She had learned to distrust
herself, to distrust Jeff, Cort, and all the charming
irresponsible people of the gay set into which they
had been introduced.

In her dressing gown she sat before her fire and
listened to the murmur of voices in the drawing
room, from which she had been banished.  She could
hear Jeff's steps as he rose and paced the floor, his
voice louder and more insistent than Larry's.
There was a coming and going of pages delivering
and receiving telegrams, and she felt the
undercurrent of a big crisis in Jeff's career—the
nature of which she had only been permitted
to surmise.  His attitude had wounded her pride.
It hurt her that Larry should see her placed in
the position of a petitioner.  Her one comfort
was the assurance that she did not care what
Jeff himself thought of her, that it was her pride
which insisted on a public readjustment of their
relations.

Camilla got up, slowly, thoughtfully, and at
last moved to the bell determinedly.

To her maid she said, "Tell Mr. Wray I'd like
to see him before he goes out."

When Wray entered the room later, a frown on
his face, the cloud of business worry in his eyes, he
found Camilla asleep on the divan under a lamp,
a magazine on the rug beside her, where it had
fallen from her fingers.  His lips had been set for
short words, but when he saw her he closed the door
noiselessly behind him.  Even sleep could not
diminish the proud curve of the nostrils, or change
the firmly modeled chin and the high, clearly
penciled brows.  Jeff looked at her a moment,
his face showing some of the old reverence—the
old awe of her beauty.

And while he looked, she stirred uneasily and
murmured a name.  He started so violently that
a chair beside him scraped the floor and awoke her.

"I must have—oh—it's you, Jeff——"

"You wanted to see me?" he asked harshly.

"Yes—I——"  She sat up languidly.  "I did
want to see you.  There are some things I want
to talk about—some things I want explained.  Sit
down, won't you?"

"I—I haven't much time."

"I won't keep you long.  You've decided to go
West—without me?"

"Yes, next week.  Perhaps sooner if——"

"I want you to change your mind about taking
me with you."

"Why?"

"I want to go."

Jeff laughed disagreeably.  "You women are
funny.  For a year you've been telling me that the
only thing you wanted was a visit to New York.
Now you're here, you want to go back.  I've told
you to get all the clothes you need, hired you an
apartment in the best hotel, given you some swell
friends, bought you jewelry——"

"I don't want jewelry, or clothes, or friends,"
she insisted.  "I want to go back and watch them
build 'Glen Irwin.'"

"They've stopped working on 'Glen Irwin.'  I
wanted the money that was going into that."

"Oh!"

"I've a big fight on, and I need all the capital
I can swing.  'Glen Irwin' will have to wait," he
finished grimly.

"Of course—I didn't understand.  But it makes
no difference.  I can stay at the hotel or at
Mrs. Brennan's."

"After all this?  Oh, no, you'd be miserable.
Besides, I have other plans."

"You don't want me?"

"No.  I'll be very busy."

"No busier than you were before we came here."

Jeff paced the length of the room and returned
before he answered her.

"See here, Camilla.  You ought to know, by this
time that when I say a thing I mean it.  I'm
going West alone to do some fence-building.  You're
to stay here and do the same thing—socially.
I need these people in my business, and I want you
to keep on good terms with them."

She gazed thoughtfully at the fire.  "Don't you
believe me when I say I want to go with you?"

Jeff made an abrupt movement.  "Well—hardly.
We've always got along pretty well, so long as each
of us followed our own pursuits.  But I think you
might as well acknowledge that you don't need
me—haven't needed me now or at any other time."

"I do need you, Jeff.  I want to try and take a
greater interest in your affairs—to help you if I
can, socially if necessary, but I'd rather do it with
you than alone."

"I may not be gone long—perhaps only a week
or so.  In the meanwhile, you're your own mistress."

"You've always let me be that.  But I have
reasons for wanting to leave New York."

Wray turned and stared at her blankly.  "Reasons?"

"Yes.  I—I'm a little tired.  The life here is
so gay.  I'm unused to it.  It bewilders me."

"I think I understand," he said slowly.  "But
it can't be helped.  I want you to cultivate the
McIntyres, the Warringtons, and the Rumsens.
Larry will stay here in the hotel for a while.  You
can call on him."

She fingered the pages of a book beside her.
"Then this is final?" she asked.

"Yes—you must do as I say."

He had never before used that tone with her.
The warm impulse that had sought this interview
was dried at its source.  "Very well—I'll stay,"
she said coldly, "no matter what happens."

He examined her shrewdly.

"You're afraid?" he asked.  "That's too bad.
I thought I was doing you a service."

"What do you mean?"

"Cort Bent.  That's what I mean.  Cort Bent.
He's yours.  I give him to you."

"Jeff!"

She rose and faced him, trembling, and her eyes
flickered like a guttering candle, as she tried to
return his look.  "How could you?" she stammered.
"How could you speak to me so?"

But he was merciless.  "Oh, I'm not blind, and
I'm not deaf, either.  I've seen and I've heard.  But
I didn't need to see or to hear.  Don't you suppose
I've always known you married me out of spite—out
of pique, because Cort Bent wouldn't marry
you.  I knew it then just as I know it now, but I
hoped I could win you back and that things would
be the same as they were before *he* came meddling
in my affairs.  Well, you know what happened
better than I do.  Our marriage has been a failure.
I was a fool—so were you.  We've made the
best of a bad job, but that don't make it a good job.
I let you go your own way.  I've been good to you
because I knew I'd been as big a fool as you were.
What I didn't know was that you'd met Cort Bent
behind my back——"

"That is not true," she broke in.  "That day he
called here——"

"Don't explain," impatiently, "it won't help
matters.  I'm not blind.  The main fact is that
you've seen Cort Bent again and that you're still
in love with him.  These people are talking about you."

"Who?  Mrs. Cheyne?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cheyne—and others."

Camilla steadied herself with a hand upon the
table.  The brutality of his short, sharp indictment
unnerved her for the moment.  She had hoped he
would have given her the opportunity to make an
explanation in her own way, a confession even
which, if he had willed, might have brought them
nearer in spirit than they had ever been.  But that
was now impossible.  Every atom of him breathed
antagonism—and the words of her avowal were
choked in the hot effusion of blood which pride and
shame sent coursing to her throat and temples.

"And if I *am* still in love with him," she said
insolently, "what then?"  He looked at her
admiringly, for scorn became her.

"Oh, nothing," he said with a shrug.  "Only
be careful, that's all.  Back in Mesa City I thought
of shooting Cort Bent, but I found a better way to
punish him.  Here"—he laughed—"I've a different
plan.  I'm going to give you a free foot.  I'm
going to throw you two together—to give you a
chance to work out your salvation in your own way.
Your marriage to me means nothing to you.  Time
has proved that.  You and I are oil and water.
We don't mix.  We never have mixed.  There
isn't any reason that I can see that we're ever going
to mix.  We've worried along somehow, to date,
but it's getting on my nerves.  I'd rather we understood
each other once and for all.  I'm past changing.
You knew what I was—a queer weed, a mongrel.
I took root and I grew as Nature made me grow, in
the soil I fell in, hardy, thick-ribbed, stubborn, and
lawless.  The world was my enemy, but I fought
it as Nature taught, by putting on a rough bark
and spines like the cactus that grew beside me.
Oh, I grew flowers, too, pretty pale blossoms that
tried to open to the sun.  You had a chance to see
them—but they weren't your kind.  You looked
beyond them at the hot-house plants——"

"Don't, Jeff," she pleaded.  "I can't bear it."

But he only laughed at her.

"Well, I've brought them to you—the roses,
the orchids, the carnations, and you're going to
live with them, in the atmosphere you've always
wanted——"

"Won't you let me speak?"

"No!" he thundered.  "My mind is made up.
I'm going West alone.  You go your way.  I go
mine.  Is that clear?  You and Cortland Bent
can meet when and where you please."

"I don't want to meet him," she whispered
brokenly.  "I don't want to see him again."

"I can't believe you," he sneered.  "We've lived
a lie since we were married.  Let's tell the truth
for once in our lives.  When I came in this room
you were asleep, but even while you slept you
dreamed of him and his name was in your mouth."

The face she turned up to him was haggard, but
her eyes were wide with wonder.

"I heard you—you were calling for Cort.  I'm
not going to be a fool any longer."

He turned away from her and went toward the
door, while she got up with some dignity and walked
to the fireplace.

"You're going—to Mrs. Cheyne?" she asked coldly.

"If I like," defiantly.  "This game works both ways."

"Yes, I see.  There's some method in your madness
after all."

"I don't see why you should care—since I don't
object to Bent.  Mrs. Cheyne is a friend of mine.
She's investing in my company——"

"Evidently," with scorn.  "No doubt you make
it profitable to her."

"We won't talk about Mrs. Cheyne.  You don't
like her.  I do.  You like Cort Bent.  I don't.
And there we are.  We understand each other.
It's the first time in our lives we ever have.  I
don't question you, and you're not to question me.
All I ask is that you hide your trail, as I'll hide
mine.  I have some big interests at stake, and I
don't want any scandal hanging around my name—or
yours.  I'm giving you into the hands of my
enemies.  The father wants to ruin my business,
the son to ruin my wife.  I'll fight General Bent
with his own weapons.  The son——"

"You're insulting," she broke in.  "Will you go?"

He turned at the door—his face pale with fury.

"Yes, I'll go.  And I won't bother you again.
These rooms are yours.  When I'm here, mine are
there.  Some day when I'm ready I'll get you a
divorce.  Then you can marry as you please.  As
for me," he finished passionately, "I'm done with
marriage—done with it—you understand?"

And the door crashed between them.

Camilla stood for a moment, tense and breathless,
staring wide-eyed at the pitiless door.  Then the
room went whirling and she caught at the chair at
her desk and sank into it helplessly, one hand pressed
against her breast.  For a moment she could not
think, could not see even.  The brutality of his
insults had driven her out of her bearings.  Why
he had not struck her she could not imagine, for
it was in the character of the part he was playing.
He had not given her a chance.  He must have
seen that she was trying to repair past damages and
begin anew.  A throb of self-pity that was almost
a sob came into her throat.  Tears gathered in her
eyes and pattered on the desk before her.  She did
not notice them until she heard them fall, and then
she dried her eyes abruptly as though in shame
for a weakness.  He did not want to begin anew.
She could see it all clearly now.  He was tired of
her and caught at the easiest way to be rid of her,
by putting her in the wrong.  Her strength came
quickly as she found the explanation, and she sat
up rigidly in her chair, her face hot with shame
and resentment.  She deserved something better
from him than this.  All that was worst in her
clamored for utterance.

With a quick movement of decision she reached
forward for a pen and paper and wrote rapidly a
scrawl, then rang the bell for her maid.

"Have this note mailed at once."

It was addressed to Cortland Bent.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TEA CUPS AND MUSIC`:

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   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   TEA CUPS AND MUSIC

.. vspace:: 2

Dropping in on Jack Perot meant being
shot skyward for twelve stories in a Louis
Sixteenth elevator operated by a magnificent
person in white gloves and the uniform of a
Prussian lieutenant.  Perot's panelled door was no
different from others in the corridor upstairs,
except for its quaint bronze knocker, but the
appearance of a man-servant in livery and the glimpse of
soft tapestries and rare and curious furniture which
one had on entering the small reception room gave
notice that a person of more than ordinary culture
and taste dwelt within.  The studio of the painter
itself was lofty, the great north window extending
the full height of two stories of the building, while
the apartment beyond, a library and dining room
with steps leading above to the bedrooms, contained
all the luxuries that the most exacting bachelor
might require.

To arrive at the distinction of being a fashionable
portrait painter one must have many qualifications.
In the schools one must know how to draw and to
paint from the model.  In the fashionable studio
one must know how to draw and paint—then
discover how not to do either.  If the nose of one's
sitter is too long, one must know how to chop it
off at the end; if the mouth is too wide, one must
approximate it to the Greek proportions; eyes that
squint must be made squintless and colorful;
protruding ears must be reduced.  Indeed, there is
nothing that the beauty doctor professes to
accomplish that the fashionable portrait painter must not
do with his magic brush.  He must make the
lean spinster stout and the stout dowager lean;
the freckled, spotless; the vulgar, elegant; the
anæmic, rosy; his whole metier is to select agreeable
characteristics and to present them so forcibly that
the unpleasant ones may be forgotten, to paint
people as they ought to be rather than as they are,
to put women in silk who were meant for shoddy,
and men in tailored coats who have grown up in
shirt-sleeves.

In addition to these purely technical attainments,
he must be an infallible judge of character, a diplomat,
a sophist; he must have a silver tea-service, to
say nothing of excellent Scotch and cigarettes.
He must be able to write a sonnet or mix a salad,
discuss the Book of Job or the plays of Bernard
Shaw, follow the quotations of the stock market,
the news of the day, and the fashions in women's
hats.  He must laugh when he feels dejected and
look dejected when he feels like laughing.  Indeed,
there is nothing the fashionable portrait painter
must not be able to do, except perhaps really—to paint.

Jack Perot could even do that, too, when he
wanted to.  The sketch of the Baroness Charny
on his easel was really sincere—an honest bit of
painting done with the freedom his other work
lacked.  Perhaps this was because it was not
a commission, but just one of those happy interludes
which sometimes occur amid the dreariest of measures.
It pleased him, at any rate, and he stood
off from it squinting delightedly through his monocle
while the Baroness poured the tea.

"Really, madame, it's too bad it's finished.  I
was almost ready to believe myself back in Paris
again," he said in French.  "If one could only live
one's life backward!"

"Oh, that wouldn't do—in a little while perhaps
you would be quite poor."

"Yes," he sighed, "but think how much better
I would paint."  He stopped before the sketch and
sighed again.  "I think it's you, Baroness.  You
bring an echo of my vanished youth.  Besides, I
didn't paint you for money.  That is the difference."

"You are going to paint that handsome Madame Wray?"

"Yes.  She's coming in for tea to-day."

"They are wonderful, those people.  He is so
original—so *farouche*."

"He's too fond of talking about himself," he
growled.  "These people represent the Western
type so common in New York—climbers—but New
York will forgive much in the husband of Mrs. Wray."

"He doesn't care whether he's forgiven or not,
does he?"

"That's a pose.  All Westerners adopt it.  To
consent to be like other people would be to confess
a weakness."

"I like him; but then"—the Baroness yawned
politely—"all Americans are attractive.  Mrs. Wray
I find less interesting."

"Naturally, madame.  You are a woman."  Then,
after a pause, "It is a pity she's getting herself
talked about."

"Really?  That's encouraging—with Monsieur Bent?"

"Oh, yes—they met in the West—the phenix
of an old romance."

"How delightful!  Monsieur Jeff doesn't care?"

"Oh, no," significantly.  "He has his reasons."

The door-knocker clanged, and Mrs. Rumsen
entered, escorting two débutantes, who paused on
the threshold of the studio gurglingly, their eyes
round with timidity and a precocious hopefulness
of imminent deviltries.

"*So* kind of you, Mrs. Rumsen.  Good morning,
Miss Van Alstyne—Miss Champney" (with Jack
Perot it was always morning until six of the
afternoon).  "You've met the Baroness?"

"How too thweetly perfect!"

"How fearfully interesting!"

The newcomers fluttered palpitantly from canvas
to canvas and only subsided when Mrs. Cheyne
entered.

"Am I welcome?" she drawled.  "This is your
day, isn't it, Jack?  Oh, how charming!"  She
paused before the sketch of the Baroness.  "Why
didn't you paint *me* like that?  I'll never forgive
you.  You were painting me for Cheyne, I know it.
My portrait fairly exudes the early Victorian."

Perot kissed the tips of his fingers and wafted them
toward her.  "Quite correct, dear Rita.  Cheyne
was paying the bill.  Now if you gave me another
commission——"

"I won't—you're the most mercenary creature.
Besides, I'm too hard up.  One must really have
billions nowadays."  She sank on the couch beside
the Baroness.  "It's really very exhausting—trying
to live on one's income.  I'm very much afraid I
shall have to marry again."

"You need a manager.  May I offer——"

"No, thanks.  I shall be in the poor-house soon
enough."

"Get Mr. Wray to help," laughed the painter
mischievously.  "They say he has a way of making
dollars bloom from sage-brush."

She glanced at him swiftly, but took her cup of
tea from the Baroness and held her peace.

The knocker clanged again, and Mrs. Wray,
Miss Janney, Larry Berkely, and Cortland Bent
came in.

"This is really jolly, Gretchen.  Hello!  Cort,
Berkely—Mrs. Wray, I've been pining to see your
hair against my old tapestry.  Oh! shades of Titian!
Can I ever dare?"

Camilla colored softly, aware of Mrs. Cheyne's
sleepy eyes in the shadow below the skylight.  She
nodded in their general direction and then took
Mrs. Rumsen's proffered hand—and the seat
beside her.

"I was so sorry to have missed you this morning,"
she said.  "I'm always out, it seems, when the
people I want to see come in."

"I should have 'phoned," said the lady.  "I had
something particular to speak to you about.  Is
your husband coming here?"

"I—I really don't know," Camilla stammered.
"He has been away and very busy."

"He'll be back for my dance, won't he?"

"I think so—but he's never certain.  He's
going West very soon."

"He was telling me something about his early
life.  You ought to be very proud of him."

"I can't tell just what it is, but to me your
husband seems like an echo of something, an
incarnation of some memory of my youth—perhaps
only a long-forgotten dream.  But it persists—it
persists.  I can't seem to lose it."

"How very curious."

"It is the kind of personality one isn't likely to
forget.  Has he any memory of his father or—of
his mother?"

"No.  His mother died when he was born.  His
father—he doesn't remember his father at all."

Mrs. Rumsen smiled.  "Forgive me, won't you?
I suppose you'll think me a meddlesome old busybody.
But I'm not, really.  I want to be friendly.
You're a stranger in New York, and it occurred to
me that perhaps you might crave a little mothering
once in a while.  It is so easy to make mistakes
here, and there are so many people who are willing
to take advantage of them."

"You're very kind, Mrs. Rumsen.  I'm glad
you think us worth while."

"I do.  So much worth while that I want to lay
particular stress upon it.  Perhaps I ought to tell
you what I mean.  Last night my brother dined with
us.  He was in a very disagreeable mood—and
spoke very bitterly of your husband.  I suppose he
may even go so far as to carry his business
antagonism into his social relations with you both."

"How very unfortunate!" in genuine dismay.

"That is his way.  He's rather used to lording
it over people here.  And people stand it just
because he's Cornelius Bent.  I suppose Mr. Wray
knows what he is about.  At any rate, I honor him
for his independence.  I told my brother so—and
we're not on speaking terms."

As Camilla protested she laughed.  "Oh, don't
be alarmed, dear; we have been that way most of
our lives.  You see we're really very much alike.
But I wanted you to understand that my brother's
attitude, whatever it is, will make no possible
difference to me."

"I shouldn't dare to be a cause of any
disagreement——"

"Not a word, child.  I'm not going to permit
Wall Street to tell me who my friends shall be.
There is too much politics in society already.  That
is why I want you to dine with me before my ball,
and receive with me afterward, if you will."

Camilla's eyes brightened with pleasure.  "Of
course, I'm very much honored, Mrs. Rumsen.  I
will come gladly, if you don't think I'll add fuel
to the flame."

"I don't really care.  Why should you?"

"There are reasons.  The General was most kind
to us both——"

"Because he had something to get out of you,"
she sniffed.  "I could have told you that before."

"But it was through General Bent that we met
everybody—people who have entertained us—the
Janneys, the McIntyres, and yourself, Mrs. Rumsen."

"He was the ill-wind that blew us the good,"
she finished graciously.  "Say no more about it.
I have a great many friends in New York, my
child—some who are not stockholders in the
Amalgamated Reduction Company."

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



In another corner of the studio—a dark one behind
a screen—Miss Janney had impounded Larry Berkely.

"Have you seen 'Man and Super-man'?" she was asking.

"I've read it."

"Well, do you believe in it?  Don't you think it
breeds a false philosophy?  Can you imagine a
girl so brazen as to pursue a man whether he wanted
her or not?"

"No.  It was very un-human," said Larry.

"Or a man so helpless, saying such dreadful
things—thinking such dreadful things about a girl and
then marrying her?"

"It was absurd—quite ridiculous in fact.  No
one ever meets that kind of people in real life.  I
never could stand a girl of that sort."

"Oh, I'm so glad you agree with me.  Do you
know, Larry, I really believe that you and I have
exactly the same way of thinking about most
things.  It's really remarkable.  I'm so glad.  It's
a great comfort to me, too, because ever since I
first met you I hoped we'd learn to understand
each other better."

"How curious!  I've been hoping the same sort
of thing—fearing it, too," he added dolefully.

"Fearing it?  What do you mean?  Tell me at once."

"Oh, nothing," he murmured.

"I insist on knowing."

"I wanted you to like me—and yet I dreaded it, too."

"Don't say that again," she whispered.  "I can't
stand it, Larry.  I do care for you—more and
more every time I see you.  But it makes me terribly
unhappy to feel that anything is bothering you."

"It needn't bother *you*."

"Yes, it does—if it makes *you* miserable.  What
is it?  Won't you tell me?"

"I—I don't think we ought to be too friendly."

"Why not?" in surprise.

"Because it wouldn't be good for you—for either of us."

"That's no answer at all.  I refuse to listen.
What do I mind if it's good for me or not—if I
care for you enough to—to—what is it, Larry?
Answer me."

"Well, you know I'm all right now, but when
I went West my bellows—my breathing
apparatus—oh, hang it all!  The reason I went West
was on account of my health.  My lungs, you
know——"

"You silly boy.  I've known that for ever so long.
That's one of the reasons why I fell in love with——"

She stopped, the color suddenly rushing to her
cheeks as she realized what she had been saying.
But Larry's fingers had found hers in the corner,
and she looked up into his eyes and went on
resolutely.  "I do love you, Larry.  I think I always
have.  Are you glad?"

Then Larry kissed her.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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On the other side of the screen, to her own
accompaniment on the piano, the Baroness Charny began
singing:

   |  "Tes doux baisers sont des oiseaux
   |  Qui voltigent fous sur mes lèvres,
   |  Ils y versent l'oubli des fièvres
   |  Tes doux baisers sont des oiseaux,
   |  Aussi légers que des roseaux,
   |  Foulés par les pieds blancs des chèvres
   |  Tes doux baisers sont des oiseaux
   |  Qui voltigent fous, sur mes lèvres."
   |

Amid the chorus of approval, as the Baroness
paused, a thin little lisping voice was heard.

"Oh, how too utterly thweetly exthquithite!
I never thought of kitheth being like the flight of
little birdth.  Are they, Mr. Bent?  I thought
they lathted longer."

Bent shrugged his shoulders and laughed.  "How
should *I* know, Miss Champney?  *I've* never been
married."

"Married?  How thilly!  Of courthe not!  It
would be thtupid to kith *then*—tho
unneth-eth—unneth-eth—oh, you know what I mean, don't
you?"

"I'm afraid I don't.  I'd be tempted not to
understand, just to hear you say 'unnecessary' again."

"Now you're making fun of me.  You're
perfectly horrid.  *Ithn't* he, Mr. Perot?"

"He's a brute, Miss Champney—an utter brute;
that's because he's never been kissed."

"Oh, how very interethting!  Haven't you really,
Mr. Bent?  Oh, you're really quite hopeleth."

Mrs. Cheyne sipped her tea quite fastidiously
and listened, bored to the point of extinction.  Nor
did her expression change when, some moments
later, Jeff Wray was announced.  Camilla's face was
the only one in the room which showed surprise.
She had not seen her husband for several days,
and she noticed, as he came over and spoke to
Mrs. Rumsen, that he looked more than ordinarily tired
and worried.  With Camilla he exchanged a careless
greeting and then passed her on his way to the
others.  The servant brought the decanter and
soda bottle, and he sank on the divan by the side of
Rita Cheyne.  It surprised him a little when she
began talking quite through him to their host and
the Baroness, whom they were asking to sing again.

It was a *Chanson Galante* of Bemberg

   |      "A la cour
   |       A la cour
   |  Aimer est un badinage
   |       Et l'amour
   |       Et l'amour
   |  N'est dangereux qu'au village
   |       Un berger
   |       Un berger
   |  Si la bergere n'est tendre
   |       Sait se prendre
   |       Sait se prendre
   |  Mais il ne saurait changer.
   |  Et parmi nous quand les belles
   |  Sont legeres ou cruelles,
   |  Loin d'en mourir de depit
   |  On en rit, on en rit,
   |  Et l'on change aussi-tot qu'elles."
   |

Jeff listened composedly and joined perfunctorily
in the applause.  Rita Cheyne laughed.

"Charming, Baroness.  I'm so in sympathy with
the sentiment, too.  It's delightfully French."

"What is the sentiment?" asked Jeff vaguely
of any one.

Mrs. Cheyne undertook to explain.

"That love is only dangerous to the villager,
Mr. Wray.  In the city it's a joke—it amuses and
helps to pass the time."

"Oh!" said Jeff, subsiding, conscious, that the
question and reply had been given for the benefit
of the entire company.

"Rather dainty rubbish, I should say," said Perot,
with a sense of saving a situation (and a client).
"Love is less majestic in the village—that's all,
but perhaps a little sweeter.  Ah, Baroness!"—he
sighed tumultuously—"Why should you recall—these
memories?"

The conversation became general again, and Wray
finished his glass and set it down on the edge of the
transom.

"What is the matter, Mrs. Cheyne?" he asked.
"Aren't you glad to see me?"

"Why should I be?" coolly.

"I don't know.  I thought you might be.  I
stopped at your house.  They told me you were
here, so I came right down."

"You're very kind—but I didn't leave any
instructions."

"No, but they told me.  I wanted to see you."
"You didn't want to see me the other night."

"I couldn't—I 'phoned you."

"Don't you think it would have been in better
taste if you had come yourself?"

"I left in the morning for Washington.  I've just
returned.  I'm sorry you didn't understand."

"I did.  You had other fish to fry.  Did you
know I came all the way in from the country to
see you?  No woman cares to throw herself at the
head of a man.  Personally I prefer an insult to a
slight, Mr. Wray."

"Good Lord!  I hope you don't think I could do
that.  I certainly have never showed you anything
but friendship.  I've been worried over—over
business matters."

"That's a man's excuse.  It lacks originality.  I'm
not accustomed to rebuffs, Mr. Wray.  I made the
mistake of showing that I liked you.  That's always
fatal, I thought you were different.  I know better
now.  There's no depth too great for the woman who
cheapens herself—I'm glad I learned that in time."

"Don't talk like that.  I tell you I've been away,"
he protested.

"Really!  Why didn't you write to me then?"

"Write?"

"Or send me some roses?"

"I'll send you a wagon-load."

"It's too late," she sighed.  "It was the thought
I wanted."

Wray rubbed his chin pensively.  It occurred to
him that there were still many things with which
he was unfamiliar.

"I did think of you."

"Why didn't you tell me so then?"

"I'm telling you now."

She leaned toward him with a familiar gesture of
renewed confidences.

"There are a thousand ways of telling a woman
you're thinking of her, Mr. Wray.  The only way
not to tell her is to *say* that you are.  What a man
says is obvious and unimportant.  A woman always
judges a man by the things that he ought to have
done—and the things he ought not to have done."

"I don't suppose I'll ever learn——"

"Not unless some woman teaches you."

"Won't you try me again?"

"I'll think about it."  And then with one of her
sudden transitions, she added in a lower tone, "I
am at home to-night.  It is your last chance to
redeem yourself."

"I'll take it.  I can't lose you, Mrs. Cheyne."

"No—not if I can help it," she whispered.

A general movement among Perot's visitors
brought the conversation to a pause.  Mrs. Rumsen,
after a final word with Camilla, departed with her
small brood.  Cortland Bent, with a mischievous
intention of supplying evidence of the inefficacy of
the parental will, removed one wing of the screen
which sheltered Berkely and his own ex-fiancée.
But Miss Janney was not in the least disconcerted,
only turning her head over her shoulder to throw
at him:

"Please go away, Cort.  I'm extremely busy."

Camilla smiled, but was serious again when Bent
whispered at her ear, "*My* refuge!" he said.  "*Yours*
is yonder."

She followed his glance toward Wray and Rita
Cheyne, who were so wrapped in each other's
conversation that they were unconscious of what went
on around them.

"Come," said Camilla, her head in the air, "let
us go."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`GOOD FISHING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   GOOD FISHING

.. vspace:: 2

A clock struck the hour of nine.
Mrs. Cheyne lowered the volume of Shaw's
plays, the pages of which she had made a
pretence of reading, and frowned at the corner of
the rug.  She now wore a house gown of clinging
material whose colors changed from bronze to
purple in the shadow of the lamps.  It fitted her
slim figure closely like chain-mail and shimmered
softly like the skin of a dusky chameleon.
Mrs. Cheyne was fond of uncertain colors in a low key,
and her hour was in the dim of twilight, which lent
illusions, stimulated the imagination to a
perception of the meaning of shadows—softened shadows
which hung around her eyes and mouth, which by
day were merely lines—a little bitter, a little
hard, a little cynical.  Mrs. Cheyne's effects were
all planned with exquisite care; the amber-colored
shades, the warmish rug and scarlet table cover,
the Chinese mandarin's robe on her piano, the
azaleas in the yellow pots, all were a part of a
color scheme upon which she had spent much
thought.  Her great wealth had not spoiled her
taste for simplicity.  The objects upon her table
and mantel-shelf were few but choice, and their
arrangement, each with reference to the other,
showed an artistry which had learned something
from Japan.  She hated ugliness.  Beauty was
her fetich.  The one great sorrow of her life was the
knowledge that her own face was merely pretty;
but the slight irregularity of her features somewhat
condoned for this misfortune, and she had at last
succeeded in convincing herself that the essence
of beauty lies rather in what it suggests than in
what it reveals.  Nature, by way of atoning for
not making each feature perfect, had endowed them
all with a kind of Protean mobility, and her mind
with a genius for suggestion, which she had brought
to a high degree of usefulness.  Without, therefore,
being beautiful at all, she gave the impression
of beauty, and she rejoiced in the reputation which
she possessed of being marked "Dangerous."

She had rejoiced in it, moreover, because she
had been aware that, no matter how dangerous she
might prove to be with others, with herself she had
not been dangerous.  The kind of romance, the
kind of sentiment, in which she indulged she had
come to regard as highly specialized art in which
she was Past Grand Mistress.  She loved them for
their own sake.  She was a fisher of men, but
fished only for the love of fishing, and it was her
pleasure while her victims still writhed to unhook
them as tenderly as might be and let them flap
ungracefully back into their own element.  Her
fly-book was a curiosity and of infinite variety.
Izaak Walton advances the suggestion that trout
bite "not for hunger, but wantonness."  Rita
Cheyne was of the opinion that men bit for a
similar reason; and so she whipped the social streams
ruthlessly for the mere joy of the game, matching
her skill to the indifference of her quarry, her artistry
to their vehemence.

And now she suddenly discovered that she must
throw her fly-book away—she had tried them
all—the "silver-doctor," the "white moth," the
"brown hackle"—and all to no purpose.  Her
fish had risen, but he would not bite.  She was
fishing in unfamiliar waters, deeper waters, where there
were hidden currents she could not understand.
The tackle she had used when fishing for others
would not serve for Jeff Wray.

It provoked her that her subtlety was of no avail,
for she had the true fisher's contempt for heavy
tackle.  And yet she realized that it was only
heavy tackle which would land him.  He was the
only man who had really interested her in years,
and his conquest was a matter of pride with her.
She had other reasons, too.  His wife was beautiful.
Rita Cheyne was merely artistic.  Victory meant
that Beauty was only an incident—that Art, after
all, was immortal.  The theory of a whole
lifetime needed vindication.

When Wray entered she was deep in "You
Never Can Tell," but looked up at her visitor
slowly and extended a languid hand.

"Aren't you early?" she asked, slipping a marker
in the pages of her book and closing it slowly.

"No, I don't think so.  I thought I was late.
I was detained."

She held up a hand in protest.

"I was really hoping you might not come.  I've
been really so amused—and when one is really
amused nowadays one should expect nothing more
of the gods."

Wray got up hurriedly.  "I won't 'butt in'
then.  I don't want to disturb——"

"Oh, sit down—do.  You make me nervous.
Have a cigarette—I'll take one, too.  Now tell
me what on earth is the matter with you."

"The matter?  Nothing.  I'm all right."

"You've changed somehow.  When I met you
at the Bents' I thought you the most wonderful
person I had ever met—with great—very great
possibilities.  Even at the Janneys' the illusion still
remained.  Something has happened to change
you.  You do nothing but scowl and say the wrong
thing.  There's no excuse for any man to do that."

"I'm worried.  There's been a slight tangle in
my plans.  I—but I'm not going to trouble
you with——"

"I want to hear—of course.  You went to Washington?"

"Yes—to see some of our congressmen.  I have
the law on my side in this fight, and I'm trying to
make things copperlined—so there can't be a
leak anywhere.  Those fellows down there are
afraid of their own lives.  They act as though they
were on the lookout for somebody to stab them in
the back.  Washington is too near New York.
A fellow goes there from the West and in about six
months he's a changed man.  He forgets that he
ever came from God's country, and learns to bow
and scrape and lick boots.  I reckon that's the
way to get what you want here in the East—but
it goes against my grain."

"Weren't you successful?"

"Oh, yes, I found out what I wanted to know.
It's only a question of money.  They'll fall in line
when I'm ready.  But it's going to take cash—more
than I thought it would."

"Are you going to have enough?"

"My credit's good, and I'm paying eight per cent."

"Eight?  Why, I only get four!"

"I know.  Eight is the legal rate in my state.
Business is done on that basis."

"I wish I could help.  You know I'm horribly rich.
I'd like to look into the matter.  Will you let me?"

"Yes, but there's a risk—you see, I'm honest
with you.  I'll give stock as security and a share
in the profits—but my stock isn't exactly like
government bonds.  Who is your lawyer?  I'll
put it up to him if you like."

"Stephen Gillis.  But he'll do what I say."

"I'd rather you consulted him."

"Oh, yes, I shall.  But I have faith in you, Jeff
Wray.  It seems like a good speculation.  I'd
like you to send me all the data.  I'll really look
into it seriously."  She stopped and examined
his face in some concern.  In the lamplight she
saw the lines that worry had drawn there.  "But
not to-night.  You've had enough of business.
You're tired—in your mind"—she paused again
that he might the better understand her meaning—"but
you're more tired in your heart.  Business
is the least of your worries.  Am I right?"

"Yes," he said sullenly.

"I'm very sorry.  Is there any way in which I can help?"

"No."

The decision in his tone was not encouraging,
but she persevered.

"You don't want help?"

"It isn't a matter I can speak about."

"Oh!"

Her big fish was sulking in the deeps?  It was a
case for shark-bait and a "dipsy" lead.

"You won't tell me?  Very well.  Frankness is
a privilege of friendship.  I'll use it.  Your wife
is in love with my cousin Cortland."

Wray started violently.

"How do you know?"

She smiled.  "Oh, I don't know.  I guessed.
It's true, though."  She paused and examined him
curiously.  He had subsided in his chair, his head
on his breast, his brows lowering.

"Are you unhappy?" she asked.

"No," he muttered at last.  "It's time we
understood each other."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Do?  Nothing," he said with a short laugh.
"There's nothing to do.  I'm a good deal of a fool,
but I know that putting trouble in a woman's way
never made her quit going after what she'd set her
mind on.  If I licked Cort Bent she'd make me
out a brute; if I shot him, she'd make *him* out a
martyr.  Any way, I'm a loser.  I'm going my
own way and she——"  He got up and strode the
length of the room and back, and then spoke
constrainedly: "I'm not going to speak of this matter
to you or to any one else."

He dropped into his chair beside her again and
glared at the window curtain.  Mrs. Cheyne leaned
one elbow on the arm of her chair which was nearest
him and sighed deeply.

"Why is it that we always marry the wrong
people?  If life wasn't so much of a joke, I'd be
tempted to cry over the fallibility of human nature.
The love of one's teens is the only love that is
undiluted with other motives—the only love
that's really what love was meant to be.  It's
perfectly heavenly, but of course it's entirely
unpractical.  Marrying one's first love is iconoclasm—it's
a sacrilege—a profanation—and ought to be
prohibited by law.  First love was meant for
memory only—to sweeten other memories later
on—but it was never meant for domestication.
Rose petals amid cabbage leaves!  Incense amid
the smells of an apartment kitchen!"

She sank back in her chair again and mused
dreamily, her eyes on the open fire.

"It's a pretty madness," she sighed.  "Romance
thrives on unrealities.  What has it in common
with the butcher?  You know"—she paused and
gave a quick little laugh—"you know, Cheyne
and I fell in love at first sight.  He was an adorable
boy and he made love like an angel.  He had a lot
of money, too—almost as much as I had—but he
didn't let that spoil him—not then.  He used to
work quite hard before we were married, and was
really a useful citizen.

"Matrimony ruined him.  It does some men.
He got to be so comfortable and contented in his
new condition that he forgot that there was
anything else in the world but comfort and
content—even me.  He began to get fat and bald.  Don't
you hate bald-headed men with beards?  He was
so sleek, shiny, and respectable that he got on my
nerves.  He didn't want to go anywhere but to
symphony concerts and the opera.  Sometimes
he played quite dolefully on the 'cello—even
insisted on doing so when we had people in to dinner.
It was really very inconsiderate of him when every
one wanted to be jolly.  He began making a
collection of 'cellos, too, which stood around the walls
of the music room in black cases like coffins.
Imagine a taste like that!  The thing I had once
mistaken for poetry, for sentiment, had degenerated
into a kind of flabby sentimentality which extended
to all of the commonplaces of existence.  I found
that it wasn't really me that he loved at all.  It
was *love* that he loved.  I had made a similar
mistake.  We discovered it quite casually one evening
after dinner."

She broke off with a sigh.  "What's the use?  I
suppose you'll think I'm selfish—talking of myself.
Mine is an old story.  Time has mellowed it
agreeably.  Yours is newer——"

"I'm very sorry for you.  But you know that
I'm sorry.  I've told you so before.  I think I
understand you better now."

"And I you," and then softly, "Mrs. Wray was
your first love?"

"No," he muttered, "she was my last."

Mrs. Cheyne's lids dropped, and she looked
away from him.  Had Wray been watching her he
would have discovered that the ends of her lips were
flickering on the verge of a smile, but Wray's gaze
was on the andirons.

They sat there in silence for some moments, but
Wray, who first spoke, restored her self-complacency.

"You're very kind to me," he said slowly.  "You
say you like me because I'm different from other
fellows here.  I suppose I am.  I was born different
and I guess I grew up different.  If you think I'm
worth while, then I'm glad I grew up the way I
did."  He got up and walked slowly the length of
the room.  She watched him doubtfully, wondering
what was passing in his mind.  She learned in a
moment; for when he approached her again he
leaned over her chair and, without the slightest
warning, had put his arms around her and kissed
her again and again on the lips.

She did not struggle or resist.  It seemed
impossible to do so, and she was too bewildered for
a moment to do anything but sit and stare blankly
before her.  He was a strange fish—a most
extraordinary fish which rose only when one had
stopped fishing.  It was the way he did it that
appalled her—he was so brutal, so cold-blooded.
When he released her she rose abruptly, her face
pale and her lips trembling.

.. _`"She did not struggle or resist. It seemed impossible to do so."`:

.. figure:: images/img-178.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "She did not struggle or resist. It seemed impossible to do so."

   "She did not struggle or resist. It seemed impossible to do so."

"How could you?" she said.  "How could you?"  And
then, with more composure, she turned and
pointed toward the door.

"I wish you'd please go—at once."

But as he stood staring at her she was obliged to
repeat: "Don't you hear me?  I want you to go
and not to come back.  Isn't that plain?  Or would
you prefer to have me ring for a servant?"

"No, I don't prefer either," he said with a smile;
"I don't want to go.  I want to stay here with you.
That's what I came for."

She walked over to the door and stood by the
bell.  "Do you wish me to ring?"

"Of course not."

"Will you go?"

"No."

She raised her hand toward the bell, but halted
it in midair.  Wray noticed her hesitation.

"Wait a moment.  Don't be foolish, Rita.  I
have something to say to you.  It wouldn't reflect
much credit on either of us for you to send me out.
I thought we understood each other.  I'm sorry.
You said once that you liked me because I was
plain-spoken and because I said and did just what
came into my head, but you haven't been fair
with me."

"What do you mean?"

"Just this: You and I were to speak to each
other freely of ourselves and of each other.  You
said you needed me, and I knew I needed you.
We decided it was good to be friends.  That was
our agreement.  You broke it wilfully.  You have
acted with me precisely as you have acted with a
dozen other men.  It was lucky I discovered my
danger in time.  I don't think any woman in the
world could do as much with me as you could—if
you wanted to.  When I like anybody I try to
show them that I do.  If you were a man I'd give
you my hand, or loan you money, or help you in
business.  I can't do that with you.  You're a
woman and meant to be kissed.  So I kissed you."

She dropped her hands.  "Yes, you kissed me,
brutally, shamelessly——"

"Shamelessly?"

"You've insulted me.  I'll never forgive you.
Don't you think a woman can tell?  There are
other ways of judging a man.  I've interested you,
yes, because you've never known any real woman
before," contemptuously.  "I suppose you're
interested still.  You ought to be.  But you can
never care for any woman until you forget to be
interested in yourself.  For you the sun rises and
sets in Jeff Wray, and you want other people to
think so, too."

"I'm sorry you think so badly of me."

"Oh, no, I don't think badly of you.  From the
present moment I sha'n't think of you at all.
I—I dislike you—intensely.  I want to be alone.
Will you please go?"

Wray gave her his blandest stare, and then
shrugged his shoulders and turned toward the door.

"You're willing to have me go like this?"

"Yes."

"I'm going West to-morrow."

"It makes no difference to me where you are going."

"Won't you forgive me?"

"No."

As he passed her, he offered his hand in one last
appeal, but she turned away from him, her hands
behind her, and in a moment he was gone.

Rita Cheyne heard the hall door close behind
him and then sank into the chair before the open
fire, her eyes staring before her at the tiny flame
which still played fitfully above the gray log.  Her
fish had risen at last with such wanton viciousness
that he had taken hook, line, reel, and rod.  Only
her creel remained to her—her empty creel.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FATHER AND SON`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   FATHER AND SON

.. vspace:: 2

Father and son had dined together alone,
and for most of the time in silence.
Cornelius Bent had brought his business mien
uptown with him, and Cortland, with a discretion
borrowed of experience, made only the most
perfunctory attempts at a conversation.  Since the
"Lone Tree" affair there had happened a change
in their relations which each of them had come
to understand.  Cortland Bent's successive failures
in various employments had at last convinced his
father that his son was not born of the stuff of
which Captains of Industry are made.  The loss
of the mine had been the culminating stroke in
Cortland's ill-fortune, and since his return to New
York he had been aware of a loss of caste in the
old man's eyes.  General Bent had a habit of
weighing men by their business performances and
their utility in the financial enterprises which were
controlled from the offices of Bent & Company.  It
was not his custom to make allowances for differences
in temperament in his employees, or even to
consider their social relationships except in so far
as they contributed to his own financial well-being.
He had accustomed himself for many years to
regard the men under him as integral parts of the
complicated machinery of his office, each with its
own duty, upon the successful performance of
which the whole fabric depended.  He had figured
the coefficient of human frailty to a decimal point,
and was noted for the strength of his business
organization.

To such a man an only son with incipient leanings
toward literature, music, and the arts was something
in the nature of a reproach upon the father himself.
Cort had left college with an appreciation of
Æschylus and Euripides and a track record of
ten-seconds flat.  So far as Bent Senior could see,
these accomplishments were his only equipment
for his eventual control of the great business of the
firm of which his father was the founder.  The
Greek poets were Greek, indeed, to the General,
but the track record was less discouraging, so
Cortland began the business of life at twenty-three as a
"runner" for the bank, rising in time to the dignity
of a post inside a brass cage, figuring discounts,
where for a time he was singularly contented,
following the routine with a cheerfulness born of
desperation.  As assistant to the cashier he was less
successful, and when his father took him into his
own office later and made him a seller of bonds,
Cortland was quite sure that at last he had come
into his own.  For the selling of bonds, it seemed,
required only tireless legs and tireless imagination—both
of which he possessed.  Only after a month he
was convinced that bond sellers are born—not made.

The General, still hoping against hope, had now
taken him back into his office on a salary and an
interest in business secured, and thus made his
son more or less dependent upon his own efforts
for the means to enjoy his leisure.  Father and son
existed now as they had always done, on a basis
of mutual tolerance—a hazardous relation which
often threatened to lead and often did lead to open
rupture.  To-night Cortland was aware that a
discussion of more than usual importance was
impending, and, when dinner was over, the General
ordered the coffee served in the smoking room,
the door of which, after the departure of the butler,
he firmly closed.

General Bent lit his cigar with some deliberation,
while Cortland watched him, studying the hard
familiar features, the aquiline nose, the thin lips,
the deeply indented chin, wondering, as he had
often wondered before, how a father and son could
be so dissimilar.  It was a freak of heredity, Nature's
little joke—at Cornelius Bent's expense.  The
General sank into his armchair, thoughtfully
contemplating his legs and emitting a cloud of smoke
as though seeking in the common rite of tobacco
some ground of understanding between his son and
himself.

"I want to speak to you about the Wrays," he
said at last.

Cortland's gaze found the fire and remained on it.

"You are aware that a situation has arisen
within the past few weeks which has made it
impossible for Bent & Company or myself personally
to have any further relations, either financial or
social, with Jeff Wray?  He has taken a stand in
regard to his holdings in Saguache Valley which I
consider neither proper nor justifiable.  To make
short of a long matter, I thought it best some weeks
ago to forget the matter of the mine and make
Wray an offer for his entire interests in the Saguache
Valley.  It was a generous offer, one that no man
in his position had a right to refuse.  But he did
refuse it in such terms that further negotiations on
the subject were impossible."

"Yes, sir, I know," put in his son.

"Wray's rise is one of those remarkable
combinations of luck and ability—I'll concede him
that—which are to be found in every community
once in a decade.  From obscure beginnings—God
knows what the fellow sprang from—he has
worked his way up in a period of three years to a
position of commanding influence.  He owns the
biggest independent smelter in the West—built
it, we now believe, with the intention of
underbidding the Amalgamated.  He has not done so
yet because he hasn't been sure enough of himself.
But he's rapidly acquiring a notion that nothing
Jeff Wray can do will fail.  That is his weak
point—as it is with every beggar on horseback.  You
are familiar with all of these facts.  You've had
some occasion," bitterly, "to form your own
judgment of the man.  When you came East I
was under the impression that, aside from
business, there were other reasons, why you disliked
him."

"That is correct, sir," muttered Cortland, "there were."

The General eyed his son sharply before he spoke
again.

"Am I to understand that those reasons still
exist?  Or——"

"One moment, sir.  I'd like to know just where
this conversation is drifting.  My relations with
Wray have never been pleasant.  He isn't the type
of man I've ever cared much about.  No conditions
that I'm aware of could ever make us friendly, and,
aside from his personality, which I don't admire, I'm
not likely to forget the 'Lone Tree' matter very soon."

"H—m!  That still rankles, does it?  It does
with me—with all of us.  Oh, I'm not blaming
you, Cort.  If you had been a little sharper you
might have made one last investigation before
you signed those papers.  But you didn't, and
that's the end of that part of the matter.  What I
want to know now is just what your relations with
the Wray family are at the present moment.  You
hate Wray, and yet most of your leisure moments
are spent in the company of his wife.  Am I to
understand——?"

"Wait a moment, sir——"  Cortland had risen
and moved uneasily to the fireplace.  "I'd prefer
that Mrs. Wray's name be kept out of the discussion.
I can't see how my relations with her can have any
bearing——"

"They have," the General interrupted suavely.
"If Mrs. Wray is to receive your confidences I
can't give you mine."

"Thank you," bitterly.  "I didn't know I had
ever done anything to warrant such an attitude
as this."

"Tut! tut!  Don't misunderstand me.  Whatever
your sins, they've always been those of omission.
I don't believe you'd betray me wilfully.  But
intimacies with pretty women are dangerous,
especially intimacies with the wives of one's financial
enemies; unless, of course, there's some method
in one's madness."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry I don't make my intention clear.  If
your friendship with Mrs. Wray can be useful to
Bent & Company I see no reason why it shouldn't
continue.  But if it jeopardizes my business plans
in any way, it's time it stopped.  In my office you
are in a position and will, I hope, in the near future
be in a further position to learn all the business plans
of the Amalgamated and other companies.  Of
course, I don't know how far Mrs. Wray enjoys
the business confidences of-her husband.  But it
is safe to assume that, being a woman, she knows
much more than her husband thinks she does.  I
don't intend that you should be placed in an
embarrassing position with respect to her or with
respect to me.  I'm on the point of starting the
machinery of my office on a big financial operation
for the Amalgamated Reduction Company—the
exact nature of which until the present moment has
remained a secret.  Your part in this deal has been
mapped out with some care, and the responsibilities
I have selected for you should give you a sense of
my renewed faith in your capabilities.  But you
can't carry water on both shoulders——"

"You're very flattering, sir.  I've never carried
much water on either shoulder; and my relations
with Mrs. Wray hardly warrant——"

"I can't see that," impatiently.  "You're so
often together that people are talking about you.
Curtis Janney has spoken to me about it.  Of
course, your affair with Gretchen is one that you
must work out for yourselves, but I'll confess I'm
surprised that she stands for your rather obvious
attentions to a married woman."

Cortland Bent smiled at the ash of his cigar.  His
father saw it and lost his temper.

"I'm tired of this shilly-shallying," he snapped.
"You seem to make a practice in life of skating along
the edge of important issues.  I'm not going to
tolerate it any longer, and I've got to know just where
you stand."

"Well, dad," calmly, "where shall we begin?
With Gretchen?  Very well.  Gretchen and I have
decided that we're not going to be married."

"What?"

"We have no intention of marrying next year or
at any other time."

"Well, of all the——!  Curtis Janney doesn't
know this."

"He should.  Gretchen is in love with somebody
else, and I——"

"*You*!  I understand.  You are, too.  You're
in love with Jeff Wray's wife."

He paused, but his son made no reply, though the
old man watched his face curiously for a sign.  The
General knocked his cigar-ash into the fire.

"Is that true?"

"Under the circumstances I should prefer not to
discuss the matter."

"Why?  You and I haven't always been in sympathy,
but the fact remains that I'm your father."  The
old man's long fingers clutched the chair arm,
and he looked straight before him, speaking slowly.
"I suppose you've got to have your fling.  I did.
Every man does.  But you're almost old enough
to be through that period now.  There was never
a woman in the world worth the pains and anxieties
of an affair of this kind.  A woman who plays loose
with one man will do it with another.  The fashion
of making love to other men's wives did not exist
when I was young."

Cortland turned to the fire, his lips compressed,
and with the tongs replaced a fallen log.

"When I was young," the old man went on, "a
man's claim upon his wife was never questioned.
Society managed things better in those days.
Ostracism was the fate of the careless woman; and
men of your age who sought married women by
preference were denied the houses of the young
girls of their own condition.  If a fellow of your
type had oats to sow, he sowed them with a decent
privacy instead of bringing his mother, his sister,
into contact——"

Cortland straightened up, the tongs in his hand, his
face pale with fury, saying in stifled tones:

"For God's sake, stop, or I'll strike you as you sit."

The General moved forward in his chair almost
imperceptibly, and the cigar slipped from his fingers
and rolled on the hearth.  For a long moment
the two men looked into each other's eyes, the elder
conscious that for the first time in his life he had
seen his son really aroused.  There was no fear
in the father's look, only surprise and a kind of
reluctant admiration for a side of Cortland's
character he had never seen.  He sank back into his
chair and looked into the fire.

"Oh!" he muttered.

"You had no right to speak of Mrs. Wray in
those terms," said Cortland, his voice still quivering.

"I'm sorry.  I did not know."

Cortland set down the fire tongs, his hands
trembling, and put both elbows on the mantel-shelf.

"Perhaps, since you know so much," he said in
a suppressed voice, "I had better add that I would
have married her if Wray hadn't."

"Really?  You surprise me."

There was a moment of silence which proved to
both men the futility of further discussion.

"If you don't mind, I'd rather we didn't speak
of this.  Mrs. Wray would understand your
viewpoint less clearly than I do.  She is not familiar
with vice, and she does not return my feeling for
her.  If she did, I should be the last person in the
world she would see——"

"I can't believe you."

"It is the truth.  Strange as it may seem to you
and to me, she loves her husband."

"She married him for his money."

Cortland was silent.  Memory suddenly pictured
the schoolroom at Mesa City where he had won
Camilla and lost her in the same unfortunate
hour—his hour of mistakes, spiritual and material—a
crucial hour in his life which he had met mistily,
a slave of the caste which had bred him, a trifler
in the sight of the only woman he could love, just
as he had been a trifler before the world in letters
and in business.

"No," he replied.  "She did not marry him for
money.  She married him—for other reasons.
She found those reasons sufficient then—she finds
them sufficient now."  He dropped heavily, with
the air of a broken man, into an armchair, and
put a hand over his eyes as though the light hurt
them.  "Don't try to influence me, sir.  Let me
think this out in my own way.  Perhaps, after
what you've told me about the Amalgamated, I
ought to let you know."

"Speak to me freely, Cort," said the old man
more kindly.

"I don't want you to think of Camilla as the
wife of Jeff Wray.  I want you to think of her as I
think of her—as herself—as the girl I knew when
I first went West, an English garden-rose growing
alone in the heart of the desert.  How she had
taken root there Heaven only knows, but she
had—and bloomed more tenderly because of the weeds
that surrounded her."

He paused a moment and glanced at his father.
General Bent had sunk deep in his chair, his shaggy
brows hiding his deeply set eyes, which peered like
those of a seer of visions into the dying embers
before him.  A spell seemed to have fallen over him.
Cortland felt for the first time in his life that there
was between them now some subtle bond of sympathy,
unknown, undreamed of, even.  Encouraged,
he went on.

"She was different from the others.  I thought
then it was because of the rough setting.  I know
now that it wasn't.  She is the same here that she
was out there.  I can't see anything in any other
woman; I don't want to see anything in any other
woman.  I couldn't make her out; it puzzled me
that I could do nothing with her.  After school
hours—she was the schoolmistress, you know,
sir—we rode far up into the mountains.  She got
to be a habit with me; then a fever.  I didn't
know what was the matter except that I was sick
because of the need of her.  I didn't think of
marriage then.  She was nothing.  Her father
kept a store in Abilene, Kansas.  I thought of you.
All my inherited instincts, my sense of class
distinction, of which we people in New York make
such a fetich, were revolted.  But I loved her, and
I told her so."

Cortland sat up, then leaned forward, his elbows on
his knees, and followed his father's gaze into the fire.

"She was too clean to understand me, sir.  I
knew it almost before I had spoken.  In her eyes
there dawned the horror, the fear, the self-pity
which could not be said in words.  Then Jeff Wray
came in and I left her—left Mesa City.  There
was—nothing else—to do."

His voice, which had sunk to a lower key, halted
and then was silent.  A chiming clock in the
hallway struck the hour; other clocks in dainty echo
followed in different parts of the house; an
automobile outside hooted derisively; but for a long
while the two men sat, each busied with a thread of
memory which the young man had unreeled from
the spool of life.  In the midst of his thoughts
Cort heard a voice at his elbow, the voice of an old
man, tremulous and uncertain, a softer voice than
his father's.

"It is strange—very, very strange!"

"What is strange, sir?"

Cornelius Bent passed his fingers before his eyes
quickly and straightened in his chair.

"Your story.  It's strange.  You know, Cort,
I, too, once loved a woman like that—the way you
do.  It's an old romance—before your mother,
Cort.  Nobody knows—nobody in the East ever
knew—even Caroline——"

He stopped speaking as though he had already
said too much, got up slowly and walked the length
of the room, while Cortland watched him,
conscious again of the sudden unusual sense of
conciliation in them both.  At the other end of the
room the General stood a moment, his hands
behind his back, his gaze upon the floor.

"I am sorry, Cort," he said with sudden
harshness.  And then, after a pause, "You must not
see Mrs. Wray again."

Cortland's hands clenched until the knuckles
were white, and his eyes closed tightly, as though
by a muscular effort he might rob them of a
persistent vision.  When he spoke his voice was husky
like that of a man who had been silent for a long
time.

"You're right, sir—I've thought so for some days.
But it's not so easy.  Sometimes I think she needs
me——"

"Needs you?  Don't they get along?"

"I don't know.  There are times when I feel that
I am doing the right sort of thing."

"He doesn't abuse her?"

"I don't know.  She'd be the last person to speak
of it if he did.  But I think she doesn't altogether
want me to go."

General Bent shook his head slowly.  "No, Cort.
It won't do.  What you've just told me makes your
duty very clear—your duty to her and your duty
to yourself.  There's danger ahead—danger for
you both.  You may not care for my advice—we've
not always understood each other—but I hope
you'll believe me when I say that I offer it unselfishly,
with the single purpose of looking after your
own welfare.  Leave New York.  I'm prepared
to send you West next week, if you'll go.  There will
be a lot of work for us all.  It's possible that I
may go, too, before long.  I can give you duties
which will keep you busy so that you won't have
time to think of other things.  When I first spoke
to you of this business to-night I spoke as President
of the Amalgamated Reduction Company, now
I am speaking to you as a father.  I want you
with us more than ever—largely on our account,
but more largely now upon your own.  Will you go?"

Cortland rose and leaned one elbow on the mantel.

"You want me to help you in the fight for Wray's
smelter?"

"Yes, I do."

"Don't you want me to see her again?"

"It's wiser not to.  No good can come of
it—perhaps a great deal of harm."

"She would not understand—she knows I dislike
her husband, but it seems to me I ought to
tell her——"

"That you're making financial war upon her
husband?  Forewarn him—forearm him?  What
else would you say.  That doesn't seem fair to me,
does it?"

He paused, watching his son narrowly and yet
with a kind of stealthy pity.  Cortland's struggle
cost him something.

"I suppose you're right," he said at last.  And
then, turning around toward his father, "I will not
see her again.  Give me the work, sir, and I'll do
my best.  Perhaps I haven't always tried to do that.
I will, though, if you give me the chance."

"Your hand on it, Cort.  I won't forget this.
I'm glad you spoke to me.  It hasn't always been
our custom to exchange confidences, but I'll give
you more of mine if you'll let me.  I'm getting old.
More and more I feel the need of younger shoulders
to lean on.  I'm not all a business document, but
the habit of mercilessness grows on one downtown.
Mercy has no place in business, and it's the merciful
man that goes to the wall.  But I have another
side.  There's a tender chord left in me somewhere.
You've struck it to-night, and there's a kind of
sweetness in the pain of it, Cort.  It's rusty and
out of use, but it can still sing a little."

Cortland laid his hand on the old man's shoulder
almost timidly, as he might have done to a stranger.

"You'll forgive me, father——?"

"Oh, that"—and he took his son's hand—"I
honor you for that, my son.  She was the woman
you loved.  You could not hear her badly spoken
of.  Perhaps if I had known my duty—I should
have guessed.  Say nothing more.  You're ready
to take my instructions?"

"Yes—and the sooner the better."

"Very good.  You'll hear more of this to-morrow.
I am—I'm a little tired to-night.  I will see you
at the office."

Cortland watched him pass out of the door and
listened to his heavy step on the broad staircase.
Cornelius Bent was paying the toll of his merciless
years.

When he was gone, Cortland sank into the big
chair his father had vacated, his head in his hands,
and remained motionless.





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.. _`INFATUATION`:

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   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   INFATUATION

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The season was at its height.  The Rumsen
ball, the Warringtons' dinner-dance, and
some of the subscription affairs had passed
into social history, but a brilliant season of opera
not yet half over and a dozen large dances were
still to follow.  Camilla sat at her desk assorting
and arranging the cards of her many visitors,
recording engagements and obligations.  When Jeff
had left for the West she had plunged into the social
whirlpool with a desperation born of a desire to
forget, and, as she went out, there had come a
bitter pleasure in the knowledge that, after all, she
had been able to win her way in New York against
all odds.  People sought her now, not because she
was a protégée of Mrs. Worthington Rumsen, or
because she was the wife of the rich Mr. Wray,
but because she was herself.

The dangers which threatened no longer caused
her any dismay, for ambition obsessed her.  It was
an appetite which had grown great with feeding,
and she let it take her where it would.  There was
not an hour of the day when she was not busy—in
the mornings with her notes and her shopping, in
the afternoons with luncheons, teas, and other smart
functions, at night with dinners, the theatre, or
the opera and the calendared dances.  There were
few opportunities for her to be alone, and the thought
of a reconciliation with her husband, which had at
one time seemed possible, had been relegated to her
mental dust-bin in company with an assorted lot
of youthful ideals which she had found it necessary
to discard.

She could not remember the day when she had
not been socially ambitious.  Five months ago,
before she and Jeff had quarreled, there had been a
time when she had been willing to give up the world
and go back with him.  She had been less ambitious
at that moment than ever before in her life.  If he
had taken her with him then, there might still have
been time to repair their damages and begin life
on a basis of real understanding.  For a brief time
she had abhorred the new life he had found for her,
had hated herself for the thing that she really was,
a social climber, a pariah—too good for her old
acquaintances, not good enough for her new ones—a
creature with a mission of intrusion, a being neither
fish, flesh, nor good red herring, and yet perhaps
something of all three.  But that period of mental
probation had passed.  She no longer felt that she
was climbing.  There were many broken rungs
below her on the social ladder, but those above were
sound, and her head was among clouds tinted with
pink and amber.

Such was the magic of success.  She lived in an
atmosphere of soft excitements and pleasurable
exhilarations, of compliments and of flattery, of
violets and roses.  Bridge lessons had improved her
game, but she still discovered that the amounts she
could lose in a week were rather appalling.  Checks
for large amounts came regularly from the West,
and she spent them a little recklessly, convinced
that she was obeying to the letter her husband's
injunction to strengthen their social position, no
matter what the cost.  She had written Jeff twice
in the first week after his departure asking if she
could not follow him to Mesa City.  His replies
had been brief and unnecessarily offensive—so
that, though his image loomed large at times, pride
refused further advances.  Cortland Bent had
been with her continually and of course people
were talking.  She heard that from Mrs. Rumsen,
who, in the course of a morning of casual "mothering,"
had spoken to Camilla with characteristic
freedom.

"I know there's no harm in his attentions, child,"
she said, "at least so far as you're concerned.  You
have always struck me as being singularly capable
of looking after yourself—and of course Cort is
old enough to know what *he* is about.  But it never
does any one any good to be talked about—especially
a woman who has her way to make in the
world.  There is a simplicity almost rustic in the
way you two young people allow yourselves to be
discovered in public places—which, to an ancient
philosopher like myself, carries complete conviction
of innocence.  But others may not be so discerning.
If you were ugly or deformed it wouldn't make the
slightest difference what you did, but, being
handsome, you are on trial; and every pretty woman in
society is on the jury of a court which convicts on
circumstantial evidence alone."

Camilla thanked her preceptor for the warning,
aware of an unpleasant sense of shock at the
revelation.  She seemed to have reached a point in her
mad infatuation with life where warnings made no
impression upon her.  She had not seen Cort Bent
for several days now, and, while she experienced
a vague sense of loss in his absence, which had not
been explained, she was so busy that she had not
even found time to analyze it.

A belated cold season had set in—a season of
snow and ice; and fashionable New Yorkers, in a
brief interlude of unimportant engagements, flocked
for the week-end to their country places to enjoy a
few days of old-fashioned winter weather.  The
Billy Havilands' farm was within motoring
distance of the town.  It wasn't much of a place in
the modern sense, merely a charming old shingled
farmhouse which had been remodeled and added
to, set in a big lawn like a baroque pearl in
green enamel, surrounded by ancient trees which
still protected it with their beneficent boughs.  As
Haviland and his wife preferred the city in winter
and went to their Newport cottage in summer,
they only used The Cove for small house parties
between seasons.  It was kept open for just such
occasions as the present one, and Camilla, who
had joined this party at the last moment, was
looking forward with enjoyment to a glimpse of winter
life in a different sort of community.

Snow had fallen during the night, but the day was
cold and clear—one of those dry, sparkling days
like the winter ones in Colorado when the Saguache
Peak was laid like a white paper-cutting against
the turquoise sky, and the trees at timber line were
visible in silhouette to the naked eye.  It was
freezing hard, and Camilla's skin tingled sharply beneath
her motor veil, but she lay back in her warm furs
beside Dorothy Haviland in the tonneau, drinking
deep breaths of delight as she watched the panorama
of purple hills across the river.  The snow was not
too deep for easy going, but in places it had drifted
across the road waist high.  Rejoicing in the chance
to test the mettle of his high-powered car, Haviland
took these drifts on the high gear, sending a cloud of
iridescent crystals over and about his guests, who
pelted the unresponsive back of his head with
snowballs.  Farmers in sleighs and wagons on runners
drew aside in alarm, to stare with open mouths at
the panting demon—which passed them by before
their horses had time to be frightened.  Every ride
with "Billy" was a "joy" ride—he hadn't driven
this car in the Vanderbilt Cup race for nothing.
Jack Perot clung to the robe rail, and alternately
prayed and swore in Haviland's ear; the Baroness
Charny punctuated his remarks with cunning
foreign cries, and Dorothy herself admonished him to
be careful, but Camilla, whatever she felt, sat quietly
between the two women, her pulses going fast, a
prey to the new excitement of speed.

Haviland had 'phoned his orders from the city to
have the bobsled sent over to the Country
Club—and when they drove through the entrance gates,
the pond in the valley below the golf course was
dotted with skaters.  A blue thread of smoke
trailed skyward from the cabin of the Fishing and
Skating Club—a part of the larger organization—from
which people came and glided forth by twos
and threes over the glossy blue surface of the pond.

A surprise awaited the party, for as the motor
drew up at the steps of the Golf House it was
greeted by a storm of soft snowballs from a crowd
ambushed in a snow fort on the lawn.  The motor
party got out hurriedly, laughing like children,
while Billy Haviland, like a good general,
marshaled his forces under the protecting bulk of the
machine, while they threw off their heavy furs and
made snowballs enough to sally forth valiantly to
the attack.  The battle was short and furious,
until Jack Perot and Camilla by a dexterous
flank-movement assailed the unprotected wings and came
to close quarters with the enemy, Larry, Gretchen,
Cortland Bent, and Rita Cheyne.  A well-aimed
shot by Camilla caught Cortland on the nose, which
disconcerted him for a moment, and Haviland
improved his opportunity by washing Rita's face in
snow.  A truce was declared, however, but not
before the besiegers had entered the breastworks and
given three cheers for their victory.

"I'll never forgive you, Billy," laughed Rita,
brushing the snow from her neck.  "Never—I'm
simply soaking."

"Spoils of victory!  You're lucky I didn't kiss you."

"Yes, I am," she said with sudden demureness.
"I'd rather have my face washed."

The machine was sent on, and, chatting gaily, the
party made its way down to the cabin by the lakeside,
a path to which had been cleared through the
snow.  Camilla glanced at Cortland Bent, who
stood silently at her side.

"What's the matter, Cort?  Aren't you going to
speak to me?" she asked carelessly.

He forced a laugh.  "Oh, yes, of course."

"Where have you been?  Do you realize that I
haven't seen you for the last two days?"

"Four," he corrected soberly.  "I—I've been
very busy."

"That's no explanation.  You're angry?"

"No, not at all.  I—thought I'd better not come."

She examined him curiously, and laid her fingers
on his arm.  "How funny you are?  Has anything
happened?"

He didn't reply at once, and kept his gaze away
from her.  "I came here to-day," he said deliberately,
"because I thought it would be the one place
where you and I wouldn't meet."

"Oh!" and she turned away abruptly, her chin
in the air, "I'm sorry.  We needn't meet *now*,"
and she hurried her steps.

But he lengthened his stride and kept pace with her.

"You don't understand——"

"I don't care to understand.  You don't want
to see me—that's enough——"

"Camilla, please——"

"I'm not in the habit of pursuing the men of my
acquaintance, Cort.  I'll save you the trouble of
avoiding me."  And with that she broke away from
him and ran down the path, joining the others at the
door of the house.  His attitude annoyed her more
because she couldn't understand it than because of
any other reason.  What had come over him?  They
had parted as friends with the definite assurance
that they were to meet the next day.  She had been
busy writing letters then, but she remembered now
that he had not called.  There was an unaccountable
difference in his manner, and he had spoken
with a cold precision which chilled her.  She felt
it in all the sensitive antennæ which a woman
projects to guard the approaches to her heart.  All
that was feminine and cruel in her was up in arms
at once against him.  He needed a lesson.  She must
give it to him.

On the ice they met a merry party, and Billy
Haviland pointed them all out to Camilla—Molly
Bracknell and her diminutive husband, known in
clubdom as the "comic supplement"; Jack Archer,
the famous surgeon, and his fiancée, who had lost
her appendix and her heart at the same time.
Stephen Gillis, the lawyer, who was in love with his
pretty client, Mrs. Cheyne, and didn't care who
knew it.

"Is he really in love with Mrs. Cheyne?" asked
Camilla.

"Oh, yes—threw over a girl he was engaged
to.  He's got it bad—worse than most of 'em."

"What a pity!"

"Rita's in good form this winter."

"She has a charm for men."

"Dolly says she's a *de luxe* binding of a
French novel on a copy of 'Handley Cross.'  I
guess it's true.  But I've always been afraid of
Rita."

"Why?"

"She's too infernally clever.  She don't like my
sort.  She likes brainy chaps with serious purposes.
They're the kind that always take to her.  I think
she knows I'm 'wise.'"

They crossed hands, and Camilla resolutely gave
herself over to the pleasure of motion.  She skated
rather badly—a fact to be bewailed, since Rita
Cheyne was doing "figure eights" and "corkscrews,"
but with Haviland's help she managed to make
three or four turns without mishap.  But she
refused to "crack the whip," and skated alone until
Cortland Bent joined her.  He offered her his hand,
but she refused his help.

"Won't you go away please, Cort?"

"I've got to see you to-night, Camilla," he said
suddenly.  "Where will you be?"

As she wouldn't reply, he took her hand and skated
backward facing her.  "You've got to see me,
Camilla——"

"I can't—I won't."

"I'm going away to-morrow."

"We've gotten along for four days without meeting,"
she said airily.  "I think I'll survive."

"You're heartless——"

"I know it.  Please get out of my way."

"No—not until you promise to let me see you."

"You're seeing me now."

He took her firmly by the elbows.  "Listen,
Camilla!  I'm leaving New York to-morrow for a
long while—perhaps for good——"

For the first time she realized the importance of
what he was saying and looked up into his eyes,
discovering something in their shadows she had
not seen before.

"Is it true?  Why are you going?"

"That's what I wanted to tell you.  May I see
you to-night?"

She considered a moment before she replied
indifferently.

"Yes, if you like.  I am at the Havilands'."

As they stopped before the cabin, Jack Perot
joined them, offering to take Camilla for a turn,
but she said she was cold, and the three of them
went inside to the burning log.  Larry and Gretchen
on the bench put a space between them rather
suddenly.

"Don't move on *our* account, Larry," said Perot
mischievously; "your silhouettes through the
window were wonderful—quite touching—in fact."

"Jack!" said Gretchen, her face flaming, "you
couldn't *see*——"

"No, as a matter of fact, we couldn't—because
the shades are drawn"—the painter laughed
immoderately—"but you know we *might* have."

"You're a very disagreeable person, and I don't
like you at all," said Miss Janney.  "I'll never let
you do my portrait—*never*!"

"Ha! ha!" he cried in accents of Bowery
melodrama.  "At last, Geraldine, I have you in
me cul-lutches.  I'm desprit and starving!  Next
week I paint your portrait—or tell your father!
Cha-oose, beautiful one!"

In the laugh which followed Larry joined
good-naturedly.  Indeed, there was nothing left to
do—unless it was to wring the painter's neck.
Instead of which, he wrung his hand and whispered,
"I wish you would, Perot.  It'll save me the
trouble."

The rest of the crowd appeared after a while, and
the steward brought hot Scotches, which detracted
nothing from the gayety of the occasion.

"God made the country—man made the town,"
sighed Billy sententiously, holding the amber liquid
to the firelight.  "The simple pleasures—the healthy
sports of our ancestors!  Eh, Rita?"

"Oh, yes," with fine scorn, "quilting parties!
No bridge, golf or tennis.  Imagine a confirmed
night owl like *you*, Billy, tucked safely in bed at
nine."

"I'm often in bed by nine."

"Nine in the morning," laughed Perot.  "That's
safe enough."

"Don't believe 'em, Camilla.  I'm an ideal
husband, aren't I, Dolly?"

"I hadn't noticed it."

"Oh, what's the use?" sniffed Mrs. Cheyne.
"There's only one Ideal Husband."

"Who?" asked a voice, solicitous and feminine.

"Oh, some other woman's, of course."

"How silly of you, Rita," said Gretchen indignantly.
"It's gotten to the point where nobody
believes the slightest thing you say."

"That's just what she wants," laughed Cortland.
"Don't gratify her, Gretchen."

Mrs. Cheyne shrugged her shoulders, and, with
a glance at Camilla, "Now the Ideal Wife, Cort——"

"Would be my own," he interrupted quickly, his
face flushing.  "I wouldn't marry any other kind."

"That's why you *haven't* married, Cortland dear,"
said Rita acidulously.

Camilla listened with every outward mark of
composure—her gaze in the fire—conscious of
the growing animosity in Mrs. Cheyne.  They had
met only twice since Jeff's departure, and on those
occasions each had outdone the other in social
amenities, each aware of the other's hypocrisy.  In
their polite interchange of compliments Wray's
name had by mutual consent been avoided, and
neither of them could be said to have the slightest
tactical advantage.  But Camilla felt rather than
knew that an understanding of some sort existed
between Mrs. Cheyne and Jeff—a more complete
understanding than Camilla and her husband
had ever had.  She could not understand it, for
two persons more dissimilar had never been created.
Mrs. Cheyne was the last expression of a decadent
dynasty—Jeff, the dawning hope of a new one.
She had taken him up as the season's novelty, a
masculine curiosity which she had added to her
cabinet of eligible amusements.  Camilla's intuition
had long since told her of Jeff's danger, and it
had been in her heart the night they separated to
warn him against his dainty enemy.  Even now it
might not have been too late—if he would have
listened to her, if he would believe that her motive
was a part of their ancient friendship, if he would
meet her in a spirit of compromise, if he were not
already too deeply enmeshed in Rita Cheyne's
silken net.  There were too many "ifs," and the
last one seemed to suggest that any further effort
in the way of a reconciliation would be both futile
and demeaning.

Camilla was now aware that Mrs. Cheyne was
going out of her way to make her relations with
Cort conspicuous—permissible humor, had the
two women been friendly.  Under present conditions
it was merely impertinence.

"Mrs. Cheyne means," said Camilla distinctly,
"that the ideal husbands are the ones one can't
get."  And then, pointedly, "Don't you, Mrs. Cheyne?"

Rita glanced at Camilla swiftly and smiled her
acknowledgment of the thrust.

"They wouldn't be ideal," she laughed, "if we
ever got them, Mrs. Wray."

"Touchée," whispered Billy Haviland to Larry
Berkely, delightedly.

Outside there was a merry jingle of sleighbells,
and Mrs. Haviland rose.  "Come, children," she
said, "that's for us.  I wish we had more room at
The Cove.  You'll come, though, Cort, won't
you?  We need another man."

"Do you mind if I stay out, Rita?" Cortland
appealed.

"Oh, not at all, I'm so used to being deserted for
Mrs. Wray that I'm actually uncomfortable without
the sensation."

So the party was arranged.  A long bobsled
hitched to a pair of horses was at the door, and the
women got on, while Gretchen pelted snowballs at
Perot, and only succeeded in hitting the horses, so
that Camilla and the Baroness were spilled out into
the snow and the man had a hard time bringing
the team to a stop.  A pitched battle ensued while
the three women scrambled into their places,
Cortland and Billy covering the retreat.  At last they
all got on, and, amid a shower of snowballs which
the sledders couldn't return, the horses galloped
up the hill and out into the turnpike which led to
the Haviland farm.





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.. _`OLD DANGERS`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


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   OLD DANGERS

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Camilla had known for some time that
she could not forget.  She sought
excitements eagerly because they softened the
sting of memory, and the childish delights of the
afternoon with the Havilands, while they made
the grim shadow less tangible, could not drive it
away.  When the idle chatter of small talk was
missing, Jeff loomed large.  At The Cove she went
at once to her room, but instead of dressing she
threw herself on the bed and followed the pretty
tracery of the wall paper beside her; her eyes
only conjured mental pictures of the days in Mesa
City, before Cortland Bent had come, the long
rides with Jeff up the mountain trail when she first
began to learn what manner of man he was and
what manner of things he must one day accomplish.
She seemed to realize now that even in those early
days Jeff Wray had stood as a type of the kind of
manhood that, since the beginning of time, has made
history for the world.

With all his faults, his vulgar self-appreciation,
and his distorted ethics, there was nothing petty
or mean about him.  He was generous, had always
been generous to a fault, and there was many a
poor devil of a gambler or a drunkard even in those
days who had called his name blessed.  He hadn't had
much to give, but when he made a stake there were
many who shared it with him.  Since he had been
married his benefactions had been numberless.  He
never forgot his old friends and, remembering old
deeds of kindness to himself, had sought them
out—a broken sheep-herder back on the range, a barber
in Pueblo who was paralyzed, a cowboy in Arizona
with heart disease, a freight brakeman of the D. &
W. who had lost a leg—and given them money when he
couldn't find work that they could do.  She
remembered what people in the West still said—that Jeff
had never had a friend who wasn't still his friend.

She had often reviled herself because her
judgment of all men was governed by the external marks
of gentility which had been so dear to her
heart—the kind of gentility which Cortland Bent had
brought into Mesa City.  Gentility was still dear
to her heart, but there was a growing appreciation
in her mind of something bigger in life than mere
forms of polite intercourse.  Jack Perot, who was
painting her portrait; Billy Haviland, who sent her
roses; Douglas Warrington, who rode with her in
the park; Cortland Bent—all these men had good
manners as their birthright.  What was it they
lacked?  Culture had carved them all with finer
implements on the same formula, but what they
had gained in delicacy they had lost in force.  Jeff
might have been done by Rodin, the others by
Carrière—Beleuze.

It made her furious that in spite of herself she still
thought of Jeff.  She got up and went to the mirror.
There were little telltale wrinkles about her eyes,
soft shadows under her cheek-bones which had not
been there when she came to New York.  It was
worry that was telling on her.  She had never yet
been able to bring herself to the point of believing
that all was over between Jeff and herself.  Had she
really believed that he was willing to live his future
without her, she could not have consented even for
so long as this to play the empty part he had assigned
her.  It was *his* money she was spending, not her
own; *his* money which provided all the luxuries about
her—the rich apartment in New York, the motor
car, *carte blanche* at Sherry's, extravagances, she
was obliged to acknowledge, which for the present
he did not share.  True, she was following implicitly
his directions in keeping his memory green in
the social set to which he aspired, and she had done
her part well.  But the burden of her indebtedness
to him was not decreased by this obedience, and she
felt that she could not for long accept the conditions
he had imposed.  Such a life must soon be
intolerable—intolerable to them both.

It was intolerable now.  She could not bear the
thought of his brutality, the cruelty of his silence,
the pitiless money which he threw at her every week
as one would throw a bone to a dog.  He was carrying
matters with a high hand, counting on her love
of luxury and the delights of gratified social
ambition to hold her in obedience.  He had planned well,
but the end of it all was near.  It was her pride that
revolted—that Jeff could have thought her capable
of the unutterable things he thought of her—the
pitiful tatters of her pride which were slowly being
dragged from her by the tongue of gossip.  Mrs. Rumsen
had warned her, and Mrs. Cheyne made free
use of her name with Cort's.  The world was
conspiring to throw her into Cortland's arms.  She
would not admit that the fault was her own—it
was Jeff's.  It had always been Jeff's.  She had
given him every chance to redeem her, but he had
tossed her aside—for another.  Now she had reached
a point when she didn't care whether he redeemed
her or not.  She felt herself drifting—drifting—she
didn't know where and didn't seem to care where.

It was affection she craved, love that she loved,
and Cortland was an expression of it.  He had
always been patient—even when she had treated
him unkindly.  A whispered word to Cortland——

Her musing stopped abruptly.  What did
Cortland mean by avoiding her?  And why was he
leaving New York?  There was a tiny pucker at her
brows while she gave the finishing touches to her
toilet; but when she went down to dinner her cheeks
glowed with ripe color and her eyes were shot with
tiny sparkling fires.

"Auction" bridge followed dinner.  In the
cutting Cort and the Baroness were out of it, and when
Cort and the Baroness cut in, Camilla and Perot cut
out.  Fate conspired, and it was not until late in
the evening that Cortland and Camilla found
themselves alone in the deserted library at the far end
of the wing.  Camilla sank back into the silk cushions
of the big davenport wearily.

"I played well to-night," she said; "I believe even
Billy is pleased with me.  I *did* have luck,
though—shameful luck——"

She stretched her arms above her head, sighing
luxuriously.  "Oh, life is sweet—after all."

Cortland watched her.

"Is it?" he asked quietly.

"Don't you think so, Cort?"

"There's not much sweetness left, for me in
anything.  I've got to go away from you, Camilla."

"So you said."  And then airily, "Good-by."

He closed his eyes a moment.

"I want you to know what it means to me."

"Then why do it?"

"I—I've thought it all out.  It's the best thing
I can do—for you—for myself——"

"I ought to be a judge of that."

His dark eyes sought her face for a meaning.

"It's curious you didn't consult me," she went on.
"I hope I know what's best for myself——"

"You mean that you don't care—my presence is
unimportant.  My absence will be even less important."

"I do care," she insisted.  "What's the use of
my telling you.  I'll be very unhappy without you."

He shook his head and smiled.  "Oh, I know—you'll
miss me as you would your afternoon tea if
it was denied you—but you'll do without it."

"I'm quite fond of afternoon tea, Cort."  And
then, more seriously, "Are you really resolved?"

"Yes," he muttered, "resolved—desperately resolved."

She threw herself away from him against the
opposite end of the couch, facing him, and folded
her arms, her lips closed in a hard line.

"Very well, then," she said cruelly, "go!"  It
seemed as if he hadn't heard her, for he leaned
forward, his head in his hands, and went on in a
voice without expression.

"I've felt for some time that I've been doing you
a wrong.  People are talking about us—coupling
your name with mine—unpleasantly.  Heaven
knows what lies they're telling.  Of course you don't
hear—and I don't—but I know they're talking."

"How do you know?"

"My father——"

"Oh!"

"We quarreled—but the poison left its sting."

Camilla laughed nervously, the laughter of a
woman of the world.  It grated on him strangely.

"Don't you suppose *I* know?" she said.  "I'm
not a baby.  And now that you've ruined my
reputation you're going to leave me.  That's
unkind of you.  Oh, don't worry," she laughed again.
"I'll get along.  There are others, I suppose."

He straightened and turned toward her sternly.

"You mustn't talk like that," he said.  "You're
lying.  I know your heart.  It's clean as snow."

"Because *you* haven't soiled it?"  She clasped
her hands over her knees and leaned toward him with
wicked coquetry.  "Really, Cort, you're a sweet
boy—but you lack imagination.  You know you're
not the only man in the world.  A woman in my
position has much to gain—little to lose.  I'm
a derelict, a ship without a captain——"

He interrupted her by taking her in his arms and
putting his fingers over her lips.  "Stop!" he
whispered, "I'll not listen to you."

"I mean it.  I've learned something in your world.
I thought life was a sacrament.  I find it's only a
game."  She struggled away from him and went to
the fireplace, but he rose and stood beside her.

"You're lying, Camilla," he repeated, "lying to
me.  Oh, I know—I've been a fool—a vicious—a
selfish fool.  I've let them talk because I couldn't
bear to be without you—because I thought that
some day you'd learn what a love like mine meant.
And I wanted you—wanted you——"

"Don't you want me still, Cort?" she asked archly.

He put his elbows on the mantel and gazed into
the flames, but would not reply, and the smile faded
from her lips before the dignity of his silence.

"I've thought it all out, Camilla.  I'm going away
on business for my father, and I don't expect to
come back.  I thought I could go without seeing
you again—just send you a note to say good-by.
It was easier for me that way.  I thought I had won
out until I saw you to-day—but now it's harder
than ever."

He looked up as he thought she might misconstrue
his meaning.  "Oh, I'm not afraid to leave on your
account.  Our set may make you a little careless,
a little cynical, but you've got too much pride to
lose your grip—and you'll never be anything else
but what you are."  He gazed into the fire again
and went on in the same impersonal tone as if he
had forgotten her existence.  "I'll always love you,
Camilla....  I love you more now than I
ever did—only it's different somehow....  It
used to be a madness—an obsession....
Your lips, your eyes, your soft fingers, the warm
elusive tints of your skin—the petals of the
bud—I would have taken them because of their beauty,
crushed out, if I could, the soul that lived inside, as
one crushes a shrub to make its sweetness sweeter."  He
sighed deeply and went on: "I told you I loved
you then—back there in Mesa City—but I lied
to you, Camilla.  It wasn't love.  Love is calmer,
deeper, almost judicial, more mental than physical
even....  I'm going away from you because
I love you more than I love myself."

"Oh! you never loved me," she stammered.  "You
couldn't speak coldly like this if you did."

He raised his eyes calmly, but made no reply.

"Love—judicial!" she went on scornfully.
"What do you know of love?  Love is a storm in the
heart; a battle—a torrent—it has no mind for anything
but itself.  Love is ruthless—self-seeking——"

"You make it hard for me," he said with an effort
at calmness.

"You know I—I need you—and yet you'd
leave me at a word."

"I'm going—because it's best to go," he said
hoarsely.

"You're going because you don't care what
happens to me."

He flashed around, unable to endure more, and
caught her in his arms.  "Do I look like a man who
doesn't care?  Do I?" he whispered.  "If you
only hadn't said that—if you only hadn't said
that——"

Now that she had won she was ready to end the
battle, and drew timidly away.  But with Cort the
battle had just begun.  And though she struggled
to prevent it, he kissed her as he had never
done before.  Her resistance and the lips she denied
him, the suppleness of her strong young body, the
perfume of her hair brought back the spell of
mid-summer madness which had first enchained him.

"You've got to listen to me now, Camilla.  I don't
care what happens to my promises—to you—or
to any one else.  I'm mad with love for you.  I'll
take the soul of you.  It was mine by every right
before it was his.  I'll go away from here—but
you'll go with me—somewhere, where we can start
again——"

In that brief moment in his arms there came a
startling revelation to Camilla.  Cort's touch—his
kisses—transformed him into a man she did
not know.

"Oh, Cort!  Let me go!" she whispered.

"Away from all this where the idle prattle of the
world won't matter," he went on wildly.  "You
have no right to stay on here, using the money he
sends you—my money—money he stole from me.
He has thrown you over, dropped you like a faded
leaf.  You're clinging to a rotten tree, Camilla.  He'll
fall.  He's going to fall soon.  You'll be buried
with him—and nothing between you and death
but his neglect and brutality."

In his arms Camilla was sobbing hysterically.
The excitement with which she had fed her heart
for the last few months had suddenly stretched her
nerves to too great a tension.  She had been
mad—cruel to tantalize him—and she had not realized
what her intolerance meant for them both until it
was too late.

He misunderstood the meaning of those tears
and petted her as if she had been a child.

"Don't, Camilla—there's nothing to fear.  I'll
be so tender to you—so kind that you'll wonder
you could ever have thought of being happy before.
Look up at me, dear.  Kiss me.  You never have,
Camilla.  Kiss me and tell me you'll go with
me—anywhere."

But as he tried to lift her head she put up her
hands and with an effort repulsed—broke away
from—him and fell on the couch in a passion of tears.
She had not meant this—not this.  It wasn't in
her to love any one.

In the process of mental readjustment following
her husband's desertion of her she had learned to
think of Cort in a different way.  It seemed as
though the tragedy of her married life had dwarfed
every other relation, minimized every emotion that
remained to her.  Cortland Bent was the lesser
shadow within the greater shadow, a dimmer
figure blurred in the bulk, a part of the tragedy, but
not the tragedy itself.  For a time he had seemed
to understand, and of late had played the part of
guide, philosopher, and friend, if not ungrudgingly,
at least patiently, without those boyish outbursts
of petulance and temper in which he had been so
difficult to manage.  She cared for him deeply,
and lately he had been so considerate and so gentle
that she had almost been ready to believe that the
kind of devotion he gave her was the only thing
in life worth while.  He had learned to pass over
the many opportunities she offered him to take
advantage of her isolation, and she was thankful that
at last their relation had found a happy path
of communion free from danger or
misunderstanding.  While other people amused and
distracted her, Cort had been her real refuge, his
devotion the rock to which she tied.  But this!
She realized that what had gone before was only
the calm before the storm—and she had brought
it all on herself!

He watched her anxiously, waiting for the storm
to pass, and at last came near and put his arms
around her again.

"No—not that!" she said brokenly.  "It wasn't
that I wanted, Cort.  You don't understand.  I
needed you—but not that way."  He straightened
slowly as her meaning came to him.

"You were only—fooling—only playing with
me?  I might have known——"

"No, I wasn't playing with you.  I—couldn't
bear to lose you—but," she stammered resolutely,
"now—I *must*——  You've got to go.  I don't
know what has happened to me—I haven't any
heart—I think—no heart—or soul——"

He had turned away from her, his gaze on the
dying log.

"Why couldn't you have let me go—without
this?" he groaned.  "It would have been easier for
both of us."

She sat up slowly, still struggling to suppress the
nervous paroxysms which shook her shoulders.

"Forgive me, Cort.  You—you'll get along best
without me.  I've only brought you suffering.  I'm
a bird of ill-omen—which turns on the hand that
feeds it.  I was—was thinking only of myself.
I wish I could make you happy—you deserve it,
Cort.  But I can't," she finished miserably, "I can't."

He did not move.  It almost seemed as though
he had not heard her.  His voice came to her at
last as though from a distance.

"I know," he groaned.  "God help you, you love
*him*."  She started up as though in dismay, and then,
leaning forward, buried her face in her hands in
silent acquiescence.  When she looked up a moment
later he was gone.





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   CHAPTER XVII


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   OLD ROSE LEAVES

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Camilla wrote nothing to Jeff about her
illness.  It was nothing very serious, the
doctor said—only a fashionable case of
nerves.  The type was common, the medicine rest
and quiet.  He commended his own sanitarium,
where he could assure her luxury and the very best
society, but Camilla refused.  She wanted to be
alone, and so she denied herself to callers, canceled
all her engagements, and took the rest cure in her
own way.  She slept late in the mornings, took
her medicine conscientiously, put herself on a diet,
and in the afternoon, with her maid only for
company, took long motor rides in the country to
out-of-the-way places on roads where she would not
be likely to meet her acquaintances.

She knew what it was that she needed.  It wasn't
the strychnia tonic the doctor had prescribed, or
even the rest cure.  The more she was alone, the
more time she had to think.  It was in moments
like the present, in the morning hours in her own
rooms, that she felt that she could not forget.
There was no longer the hum of well-bred voices
about her, no music, the glamor of lowered lights,
or the odor of embowered roses to distract her mind
or soothe her senses.  In the morning hours Jeff was
present with her in the flesh.  Everything about her
reminded her of him; the desk at which he had
worked, with its pigeon-holes full of papers in the
reckless disorder which was characteristic of him;
the corncob pipe which he had refused to discard;
the Durham tobacco in its cotton bag beside a
government report on mining; the specimens of ore from
the "Lone Tree," which he had always used as
paper weights; the brass bowl into which he had
knocked his ashes; and the photograph, in its
jeweled frame, of herself in sombrero and kerchief,
taken at Myers's Photograph Gallery in Mesa City
at the time when she had taught school, before
Jeff's dreams had come true.

She took the picture up and examined it closely.
It was the picture of a girl sitting on a table, a
lariat in one hand and a quirt in the other, and
the background presented Mesa City's idea of an
Italian villa, with fluted columns, backed by some
palms and a vista of lake.  How well she remembered
that gray painted screen and the ornate wicker
chair and table which were its inevitable accompaniment.
They had served as a background for Pete
Mulrennan in a Prince Albert coat, when he was
elected mayor; for Jack Williams, the foreman of
the "Lazy L" ranch, and his bride from Kinney;
for Mrs. Brennan in her new black silk dress; for the
Harbison twins and their cherubic mother.  She
put the photograph down, and her head sank
forward on her arms in mute rebellion.  In her sleep
she had murmured Cort's name, and Jeff had heard
her.  But she knew that in itself this was not
enough to have caused the breach.  What else had
he heard?  Jeff had tired of her—that was all—had
tired of being married to a graven image, to
a mere semblance of the woman he had thought she
was.  She could not blame him for that.  It was
his right to be tired of her if he chose.

It was the sudden revelation of the actual state
of her mind with regard to Cortland which had
given her the first suggestion of her true bearings—that
and the careless chatter of the people of their
set in which Mrs. Cheyne was leading.  Cortland
had guessed the truth which she had been so
resolutely hiding from herself.  She loved Jeff—had
always loved him—and would until the end of
time.  Like the chemist who for months has been
seeking the solution of a problem, she had found
the acid which had magically liberated the desired
element; the acid was Jealousy, and, after all
dangerous vapors had passed, Love remained in the
retort, elemental and undefiled.  The simplicity
of the revelation was as beautiful as it was
mystifying.  Had she by some fortuitous accident
succeeded in transmuting some baser metal into gold,
she could not have been more bewildered.  Of
course, Jeff could not know.  To him she was still
the Graven Image, the pretty Idol, the symbol of
what might have been.  How could he guess that
his Idol had been made flesh and blood—that now
she waited for him, no longer a symbol of lost
illusions, but just a woman—his wife.  She raised
her head at last, sighed deeply, and put the
photograph in the drawer of the desk.  As she did so,
the end of a small battered tin box protruded.  She
remembered it at once—for in it Jeff had always
kept the letters and papers which referred to his
birth and babyhood.  She had looked them over
before with Jeff, but it was almost with a feeling of
timidity at an intrusion that she took the box out
and opened it now.  The papers were ragged,
soiled, and stained with dampness and age, and
the torn edges had been joined with strips of
court-plaster.  There were two small portraits taken by a
photographer in Denver.  Camilla took the photographs
in her fingers and looked at them with a new
interest.  One of the pictures was of a young
woman of about Camilla's age, in a black beaded
Jersey waist and a full overskirt.  Her front hair
was done in what was known as a "bang," and the
coils were twisted high on top of her head.  But
even these disfigurements—according to the lights
of a later generation—could not diminish the
attractiveness of her personality.  There was no
denying the beauty of the face, the wistful eyes, the
straight, rather short nose, the sensitive lips, and
the deeply indented, well-made chin—none of the
features in the least like Jeff's except the last, which,
though narrower than his, had the same firm lines
at the angle of the jaw.  It was not a weak face,
nor a strong one, for whatever it gained at brows
and chin it lost at the eyes and mouth.

But Jeff's resemblance to his father was
remarkable.  Except for the old-fashioned collar and
"string" tie, the queerly cut coat, and something
in the brushing of the hair, the figure in the other
photograph was that of her husband in the life.
She had discovered this when she and Jeff had
looked into the tin box just after they were married,
and had commented on it, but Jeff had said nothing
in reply.  He had only looked at the picture steadily
for a moment, then rather abruptly taken it from
her and put it away.  From this Camilla knew that
the thoughts of his mother were the only ones which
Jeff had cared to select from the book of memory
and tradition.  Of his father he had never spoken,
nor would speak.  He would not even read again
these letters which his mother had kept, wept over,
and handed down to her son that the record of a
man's ignominy might be kept intact for the
generations to follow her.

It was, therefore, with a sense of awe, of intrusion
upon the mystery of a sister's tragedy, that Camilla
opened the letters again and read them.  There
were eight of them in all, under dates from May until
October, 1875, all with the same superscription
"Ned."  As she read, Camilla remembered the whole sad
story, and, with the face of the woman before her,
was able to supply almost word for word the tender,
passionate, bitter, forgiving letters which must have
come between.  She had pleaded with him in May to
return to her, but in June, from New York, he
had written her that he could not tell when he would
go West again.  In July he was sure he would not
go West until the following year, if then.  In August
he sent her money—which she must have returned—for
the next letter referred to it.  In September
his manner was indifferent—in October it was
heartless.  It had taken only six months for this
man madly to love and then as madly to forget.

Camilla remembered the rest of the story as Jeff
had told it to her, haltingly, shamedly, one night
at Mrs. Brennan's, as it had been told to him when
he was a boy by one of the nurses who had taken
him away from the hospital where his mother had
died—of her persistent refusal to speak of Jeff's
father or to reveal his identity, of Jeff's birth
without a name, and of his mother's death a few weeks
later, unrepentant and unforgiving.  With her last
words she had blessed the child and prayed that
they would not name it after her.  At first he had
been playfully called "Thomas Jefferson," and so
Thomas Jefferson he remained until later another of
his guardians had added the "Wray" after a
character in a book she was reading and "because it
sounded pretty."  That was Jeff's christening.

Camilla put the letters aside with the faded blue
ribbon which had always accompanied them and
gazed at the photograph of Jeff's father.  Yes, it
was a cruel face—a handsome, cruel face—and
it looked like Jeff.  She had never thought of Jeff
as being cruel.  Did she really know her husband,
after all?  Until they had come to New York Jeff
had always been forbearing, kindly, and tender.
Before their marriage he had sometimes been
impatient with her—but since that time, often when
he had every right to be angry, he had contented
himself with a baby-like stare and had then turned
away and left her.  Flashes of cruelty sometimes
had shown in his treatment of the Mexicans on the
railroad or at the mines, but it was not the kind of
cruelty this man in the photograph had shown—not
the enduring cruelty of heartlessness which
would let a woman die for the love of him.  The
night Jeff had left her the worst in him was dominant,
and yet she had not thought of him as cruel.  It
was to the future alone which she must look for an
answer to the troubled question that rose in her mind.

At this moment her maid entered—a welcome interruption.

"Will you see Mrs. Rumsen, Madame?"

"Oh, yes, Celeste.  Ask her if she won't come in
here."

Of all the friendships she had made in New York,
that of Mrs. Rumsen was the one Camilla most
deeply prized.  There was a tincture of old-world
simplicity in her grandeur.  Only those persons were
snobbish, Mrs. Rumsen always averred, whose social
position was insecure.  It was she who had helped
Camilla to see society as it really was, laid bare to
her its shams, its inconsistencies, and its follies; who
had shown her the true society of old New York;
taken her to unfamiliar heights among the
"cliff-dwellers" of the old régime who lived in the
quiet elegance of social security with and for their
friends, unmoved by the glitter of modern
gew-gaws, who resisted innovations and fought hard
for old traditions which the newer generation was
seeking to destroy, a mild-eyed, incurious race of
people who were sure that what they had and were
was good, and viewed the social extravagances as
the inhabitants of another planet might do, from
afar, who went into the world when they chose, and
returned to their "cliffs" when they chose, sure of
their welcome at either place.  They were the
people Rita Cheyne called "frumps," and Cortland
Bent, "bores," but to Camilla, who had often
found herself wondering what was the end and aim
of all things, they were a symbol of completion.

Mrs. Rumsen laid aside her wraps with the
deliberation of a person who is sure of her welcome.

"You'll forgive my appearance?" asked Camilla.
"I didn't think you'd mind."

"I'm flattered, child.  It has taken longer than
I supposed it would to teach you not to be punctilious
with me.  Well, you're better, of course.  This
long rest has done wonders for you."

"Oh, yes.  But I'm afraid I wouldn't last long
here.  I'm used to air and sunshine and bed at ten
o'clock at night."  She paused a moment.  "I've
been thinking of going West for a while."

"Really?  When?"

"I—I haven't decided.  I thought that Jeff
would have returned by this time, but his business
still keeps him."

"And you miss him?  That's very improper.  I'm
afraid I haven't schooled you carefully enough."  She
smiled and sighed.  "That is a vulgar weakness
your woman of society must never confess to.
We may love our husbands as much as we like, but
we mustn't let people know it.  It offends their
conceit and reminds them unpleasantly of their own
deficiencies."

"People aren't really as bad as you're trying to
paint then," laughed Camilla.  "Even you,
Mrs. Rumsen!  Why, I thought the habit of cynicism
was only for the very young and inexperienced."

"Thanks, child.  Perhaps it's my second
childhood.  I don't want to be cynical—but I must.
One reason I came to you is because I want you to
refresh my point of view.  I wonder what air and
sunshine and bed at ten o'clock would do for me.
Would you like to prescribe it for me?  I wonder if
you wouldn't take me West with you."

Camilla laughed again.

"Are you really in earnest?  Of course I'd be
delighted—but I'm afraid you wouldn't be.  The
accommodations are abominable except, of course,
in Denver, and you wouldn't want to stay there.
You know our—our house isn't finished yet.  It
would be fine if we could camp—but that isn't
very comfortable.  I love it.  But you know there
are no porcelain tubs——"

"Oh, I know.  I've camped in the West, dear,
a good many years ago—before you were born.  I
wonder how I should like it now——"

She paused, her wandering gaze resting on the
desk, which Camilla had left in disorder, the letters
scattered, the photographs at which she had been
looking propped upright against the tin document-box.
It was on the photographs that Mrs. Rumsen's
gaze had stopped.  Slowly she rose from her chair,
with an air of arrested attention, adjusted her
lorgnon, and examined it at close range.

"I thought I might have been mistaken at first,"
she said quickly.  "I see I'm not.  Camilla, dear,
where on earth did you get that photograph of the
General?"

Camilla had risen.  "The General?" she faltered.
"I don't understand."

"Of my brother—Cornelius Bent—that is his
photograph.  I have one like it in the family album
at home."

"That can't be."

"I was looking over them only the other day—why
do you look so strangely?"

"Are you sure?  You can't be sure——"

"I am.  I remember the queer cravat and the
pose of the hands on the chair.  I remember him,
too—perfectly.  Do you think I wouldn't know my
own brother?"

"Oh, there must be some mistake—it is dreadful.
I can't——"

"What is dreadful, child?  What do you mean?"  She
laid a hand on Camilla's arm, and Camilla
caught at it, her nerves quivering.

"The photograph is——"

"Where did you get it?  It isn't mine, is it? or
Cortland's?"

"No, no.  It has been in that tin box for more
than thirty years.  It isn't yours.  It's
Jeff's—my husband's—do you understand?  It's
his—oh, I can't tell you.  It's too horrible.  I can't
believe it myself.  I don't want to believe it."

She sank into the chair at the desk, trembling
violently.  Mrs. Rumsen, somewhat surprised and
aware of the imminence of a revelation the nature
of which she could not even faintly surmise, bent
over Camilla kindly and touched her gently on the
shoulder.

"Compose yourself, Camilla, and if you think I
ought to know, tell me.  What had my brother to
do with you or yours?  How did his picture come here?"

Camilla replied with difficulty.

"That picture has been in Jeff's possession since
he was a baby.  It was the only heritage his mother
left him, the photograph and these letters.  I have
just been reading them.  They were written to *her*.
*He* had deserted her—before Jeff was born——"

Mrs. Rumsen's hand had dropped from Camilla's
shoulder, and she turned quickly away—with a
sharp catch in her breath.  When she spoke, her
voice, like Camilla's, was suppressed and controlled
with difficulty.

"Then my brother was—your husband's——"

"Oh, I don't know," Camilla broke in quickly.
"It is all so dreadful.  There may be some mistake.
Jeff will never speak of it.  He has tried all these
years to forget.  I don't know why I took these
letters out to read.  Perhaps it would be better if
you hadn't known——"

"No, no.  I think I ought to know.  Perhaps in
justice to my brother——"

"There can be no justice for Jeff's father,
Mrs. Rumsen.  I have read his letters to her—to Jeff's
mother.  Before you came in I was trying to think
of a punishment horrible enough for the kind of
men who deceive women as he did, and then leave
them to face the world alone."

"But perhaps there was something you don't
know——" she groped vainly.

"Every question you would ask, every excuse that
he could offer, is answered in these letters.  Now
that you know Jeff's story perhaps you had better
read them."

With trembling hands she gathered the letters
and gave them to her visitor, who now sat in the
big armchair near the window, her straight figure
almost judicial in its severity.  She glanced at the
handwriting and at the signature, and then let the
papers fall into her lap.

"Yes, they are my brother's," she said slowly.
"It is his handwriting—and the name—the
General's name is Cornelius Edward—'Ned' was
his name at college—he never used his first
name until later in life.  I—I suppose there's no
doubt about it."

She sat with one hand to her brow as though
trying to reconcile two parts of an astounding
narrative.  Camilla's revelation did not seem in
the least like reality.  Cornelius Bent's part in it
was so at variance with his character as she had
known it.  There had never been time for love or
for play.  When he had given up his profession of
engineering and plunged into business downtown
his youth was ended.  She recalled that this must
have been about the time he returned from the
Western trip—the year before he was married.
The making of money had been the only thing
in life her brother had ever cared about.  He had
loved his wife in his peculiar way until she died,
and he had been grateful for his children.  His
membership in the —— Regiment, years ago, had
been a business move, and the service, though
distinguished, had made him many valuable business
connections, but all of Cornelius Bent's family knew
that his heart and his soul were downtown, day and
night, night and day.

And yet there seemed no chance that Camilla
could be mistaken.  The marks of handling, the
stains of Time—perhaps of tears—the pin-hole at
the top, these were the only differences between
the photograph in her album at home and the one
she now held in her fingers.

Camilla waited for her to speak again.  Her own
heart was too full of Jeff and of what this discovery
might mean to him to be willing to trust herself to
further speech until she was sure that her visitor
understood the full meaning of the situation.  There
was a sudden appreciation of the delicacy of her own
position and of the danger to which her friendship
with Mrs. Rumsen was being subjected—and,
highly as she had prized it, Camilla knew that if
her visitor could not take her own point of view with
regard to Jeff's father and with regard to Jeff
himself she must herself bring that friendship to an end.
In some anxiety she waited and watched Mrs. Rumsen
while she read.  The proud head was bent,
the brows and chin had set in austere lines, and
Camilla, not knowing what to expect, sat silently
and waited.

"It is true, of course," said her visitor, softly.
"There can't be the slightest doubt of it now.  There
are some allusions here which identify these letters
completely.  I don't know just what to say to you,
child.  From the first time I saw your husband he
attracted me curiously—reflected a memory—you
remember my speaking of it?  It all seems so
clear to me now that the wonder is I didn't think of
it myself.  The resemblance between the two men
is striking even now."

"Yes—yes—I hadn't thought of that."

There was another silence, during which
Mrs. Rumsen seemed to realize what was passing in
Camilla's mind—her sudden reticence and the
meaning of it, for she straightened in her chair and
extended both hands warmly.

"It is all true.  But my brother's faults shall make
no difference in my feeling for his children.  If
anything I should and will love them the more.  Come
and kiss me, Camilla, dear," she said with gentle
simplicity.

And Camilla, her heart full of her kindness, fell
on her knees at Mrs. Rumsen's feet.

"You are so good—so kind," she sobbed happily.

"Not at all," said Mrs. Rumsen with a return of
her old "grenadier" manner, at the same time
touching her handkerchief to her eyes.  "To
whom should I not be good unless to my own.  If
my brother disowns your husband, there's room
enough in my own empty heart for you both——"

Camilla started back frightened, her eyes shining
through her tears.

"You must not speak of this to him—to General
Bent—not yet.  I must think what it is best for
us to do."

"No, dear.  I'll not speak of it.  I'll never speak
of it unless you allow me to.  It is your husband's
affair.  He shall do what he thinks best.  As for
Cornelius—it is a matter for my brother—and
his God——"

"He has forgotten.  Perhaps it would be better
if he never knew."

"Something tells me that he will learn the truth.
It was written years ago.  It will not come through
me—because it is not my secret to tell.  One
thing only is certain in my mind, and that is that
your husband, Jeff, must be told.  It is his right."

"Yes, I know.  I must go to him.  It will be
terrible news for him."

"Terrible?"

"I fear so.  I remember his once saying that if he
ever found his father he'd shoot him as he would
a dog."

As Mrs. Rumsen drew back in alarm, she added
quickly, "Oh, no, of course he didn't mean that.
That was just Jeff's way of expressing himself."

As Camilla rose, Mrs. Rumsen sighed deeply.

"I don't suppose I have any right to plead for
my brother—but you and Jeff must do him justice,
too.  All this happened a long while ago.  Between
that time and this lie thirty years of good
citizenship and honorable manhood.  Cornelius has been
no despoiler of women."  She picked up the papers
again.  "The curious thing about it, Camilla, is
that nowhere in these letters is there any mention
of a child.  I can't understand that.  Have you
thought—that perhaps he did not know?  It's
very strange, mystifying.  I have never known the
real heart of my brother, but he could hardly have
been capable of *that*.  He was never given at any
time to show his feelings—even to his wife or his
family.  Have you thought—that perhaps he
loved—Jeff's mother?"

"I hope—I pray that he did.  Perhaps if Jeff
could believe that—but the letters—no,
Mrs. Rumsen—no man who had ever loved could have
written that last letter."

"But you must do what you can to make your
husband see the best of it, Camilla.  That is your
duty, child—don't you see it that way?"

Camilla was kneeling on a chair, her elbows on
its back, her fingers wreathing her brows.

"Yes, I suppose so," she sighed.  "But I'm
afraid in this matter Jeff will not ask my opinions—he
must choose for himself.  I don't know what he
will do or say.  You could hardly expect him to show
filial devotion.  Gladys and Cortland"—she rose
in a new dismay and walked to the window—"I
had not thought of them."

Her visitor followed Camilla with questioning eyes.
"They must share the burden—it is theirs, too,"
she put in after a moment.

"It is very hard for me to know what to do.  It is
harder now than it would have been before this
fight of the Amalgamated for the smelter.  They
are enemies—don't you suppose I hear the talk
about it?  General Bent has sworn to ruin Jeff—to
put him out of business; and Jeff will fight until he
drops.  Father against son—oh, Mrs. Rumsen,
what can be done?"  She took the photograph and
letters from the lap of her visitor and stood before
the mantel.  "If I burned them——"

"No, no," Mrs. Rumsen had risen quickly and
seized Camilla by the arm.  "You mustn't do that."

"It would save so much pain——"

"No one saved *her* pain.  You have no right.
Who are you to play the part of Providence to two
human souls?  This drama was arranged years
before you were born.  It's none of your affair.
Fate has simply used you—used *us*—as humble
instruments in working out its plans."

Camilla shook her head.  "It can do Jeff no good.
It will do Gladys and Cortland harm.  Jeff has
forgotten the past.  It has done him no harm—except
that he has no name.  He has won his way
without a name—even this will not give him one.
Jeff's poor incubus will be a grim reality—tangible
flesh—to be despised."

Mrs. Rumsen looked long into the fire.  "I can't
believe it," she said slowly.  "My brother and I
are not on the best of terms—we have never been
intimate, because we could not understand each
other.  But he is not the kind of man any one
despises.  People downtown say he has no soul.  If
he hasn't, then this news can be no blow to him.
If he has——"

She paused.  And then, instead of going on, took
Camilla by the hand.

"Camilla," she said gently, "we must think long
over this—but not now.  It must be slept on.  Get
dressed while I read these letters, and we'll take a
spin into the country.  Perhaps by to-morrow
we'll be able to see things more clearly."





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   CHAPTER XVIII


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   COMBAT

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It had been a time of terrific struggles.  For
four months Wray's enemies had used every
device that ingenuity could devise to harass
him in the building of his new road, the Saguache
Short Line; had attacked the legality of every move
in the courts; hampered and delayed, when they
could, the movement of his material; bribed his
engineers and employes; offered his Mexicans
double wages elsewhere; found an imaginary flaw
in his title to the Hermosa Estate which for a time
prevented the shipment of ties until Larry came on
and cleared the matter up.  Finally they caused
a strike at the Pueblo Steel Works, where his rails
were made, so that before the completion of the
contract the works were shut down.  Tooth and
nail Jeff fought them at every point, and Pete
Mulrennan's judge at Kinney, whose election had
taken place before the other crowd had made
definite plans, had been an important asset in the
fight for supremacy.

The other crowd had appealed from his decisions,
of course, but the law so far had been on Wray's
side, and there was little chance that the decisions
would be overruled in the higher court.  But as
Jeff well knew, the Amalgamated crowd had no
intention of standing on ceremony, and what they
couldn't do in one way they attempted to
accomplish in, another.  Five carloads of ties on the
Denver and Saguache railroad were ditched in an
arroyo between Mesa City and Saguache.  Wray's
engineers reported that the trestles had been
tampered with.  Jeff satisfied himself that this was
true, then doubled his train crews, supplied the
men with Winchesters and revolvers, and put a
deputy sheriff in the cab of each locomotive.  After
that an explosion of dynamite destroyed a number
of his flat cars, and a fire in the shops was narrowly
averted.  A man caught at the switches had been
shot and was now in the hospital at Kinney with
the prospect of a jail sentence before him.  Judge
Weigel was a big gun in Kinney, and he liked to
make a big noise.  He would keep the law in
Saguache County, he said, if he had to call on the
Governor to help him.

More difficult to combat were the dissensions
Jeff found among his own employes.  The German
engineers, like other men, were fallible, and left him
when the road was half done because they were
offered higher salaries elsewhere.  His
under-engineers, his contractors, his foremen were all
subject to the same influences, but he managed somehow
to keep the work moving.  New men, some of them
just out of college, were imported from the East
and Middle West, and the Development Company
was turned into an employment agency to keep
the ranks of workmen filled.  Mexicans went and
Mexicans came, but the building of the road went
steadily on.  There were no important engineering
problems to solve, since the greater part of the line
passed over the plains, where the fills and cuts
were small and the grading inexpensive.  Seven
months had passed since ground had been broken
and the road, in spite of obstacles, had been nearly
carried to completion.

Already Wray had had a taste of isolation.  For
two months there had been but one passenger train
a day between Kinney and Saguache.  To all
intents and purposes Kinney was now the Western
terminus of the road, and Saguache was beginning
to feel the pinch of the grindstones.  Notwithstanding
the findings of the Railroad Commission,
Judge Weigel's decision, and Jeff's representations
through his own friends at Washington, the
Denver and Western refused to put on more trains.
Saguache, they contended, was not the real
terminus of the road; that the line had been extended
from Kinney some years before to tap a coal field
which had not proved successful; that Saguache
was not a growing community, and that the old
stage line still in operation between the two towns
would be adequate for every purpose.  These were
lies of course, vicious lies, for every one knew that
since the development of the Mesa City properties
Saguache had trebled in size, and that the freight
business alone in ten years would have provided
for the entire bonded indebtedness of the road.
What might happen in time Jeff did not know or
care.  It was a matter which must be fought out
at length and might take years to settle.  The
Chicago and Utah Railroad Company for the present
had command of the situation.  To handle the
business Jeff had put on a dozen four-mule teams
between Kinney and Saguache, which carried his
freight and necessary supplies along the old trail
over the Boca Pass, which was shorter by ten miles
than the railroad, a heart-breaking haul and a
dangerous one to man and beast.  But it was the
only thing left for him to do.

Realizing the futility of any efforts at coercion,
Jeff had relinquished the losing battle and
had put his heart and soul into the building of the
Saguache Short Line.  He knew every stick and
stone of it and rode along the line from camp to
camp, lending some of his own enthusiasm to the
foremen of the gangs, pitting one crowd against
the other in friendly rivalry for substantial
bonuses.  At last the connecting links were forged
and only a matter of twenty miles of track remained
to be laid—when the Pueblo Steel Works shut
down.  This was a severe blow—one on which
Jeff had not counted.  The penalties for
non-delivery to which the steel company were liable
were heavy, but Jeff did not want the penalties.
Compared with his own magnificent financial prospects,
the penalties were only a drop in the bucket.
He wanted his road.  His entire future depended
upon its completion—the smelter, the
Development Company, and all his chain of mining, coal,
and lumber properties.  Without that road he
was now at the mercy of his enemies.

Twenty miles of rails!  They seemed very little
in the face of what he had already accomplished.
He had not counted on this, and had laid no
alternative plans.  The Denver and California people
were powerless to help him.  A subtle influence
was at work among the steel companies, and, so
far as Jeff could see, it would take him from three
to five months to get his rails from the West or
East.  In the meanwhile what might his enemies
not accomplish in bringing about his downfall.
What would become of his pledges to the settlers
on the Hermosa Estate—and the lot-holders of
Saguache, many of whose houses were only half
built while they waited for the material to
complete them?  These people were already impatient,
and in a short while, unless something could be done
to open connections, the storm must break.

Some days before, by request, Jeff had met
Cortland Bent in Denver.  He was glad to learn that
at last the Amalgamated had decided to come out
into the open and kept the appointment, wondering
why the General had chosen Cortland as his
emissary.  He had entered the offices of the
Chicago and Utah with his usual air of self-confidence,
frankly curious as to what part Cort could be
expected to play in such a big game.  It did not
take him long to learn.  They had not been talking
more than a few moments before Jeff discovered
that General Bent had made no mistake.  The
bored, abstracted air of the gilded youth, the
mannerisms which Jeff had been accustomed to
associate with Cortland Bent, were for some reason
lacking.  In the short time since they had last met a
change of some sort had come over his old
acquaintance.  He conveyed an impression of spareness
and maturity, as though in a night he had melted
off all superfluities of flesh and spirit.  His eyes
now seemed to be more deeply set, their gaze,
formerly rather deliberate, now penetrating, almost
to a degree of shrewdness.  He was no longer the
boy who had been a failure.  He was now the man
who had tasted the bitterness of success.

"I thought we might make one more effort for
peace, Wray.  That's why I'm here.  I'm fully
informed as to the affairs of the Amalgamated
Reduction Company and as to my father's
previous conversations with you.  I'm authorized to
talk over your interests in the Valley.  We thought
before carrying out all our plans you might like
to have a chance to reconsider."

"That's pretty clever of you, Bent.  I'm ready
to talk business—any time.  Fire away!"

"I will.  By this time you have probably formed
some sort of an idea of the kind of a proposition
you're up against.  I'm not making any pretence
of friendship when I warn you that you're going
to lose out in the end.  My instructions are to ask
you to come in with us now.  Later perhaps you
couldn't do it so advantageously."

"H—m!  I'm figuring my chances are getting
better every minute, Bent."  He paused and then
added, smiling, "How would your crowd like to
come in with me?  I've got a good thing—a very
good thing.  And I wouldn't mind selling a small
block at a good figure.  It seems a pity to cut
each other's throats, don't it?  They'll be building
houses of gold-bricks out here next year, and you
and I will pay the bill—while we might be putting
a snug profit into our pockets."

Bent remembered another bluff of Wray's which
had been expensive, so he only laughed.

"You once froze me out with a pair of deuces,
Wray, but I'm holding cards this hand," he finished
quietly.

"I haven't such a bad hand, Bent," drawled
Jeff, shaking some Durham into a paper.  "Even
'fours' wouldn't scare me."  He put the drawing
string of his tobacco-bag in his teeth and closed
the bag viciously.  "See here—we're wasting
time.  What are your offers?  If they're not better
than your father's were, it's not worth while talking."

"Better than my father's?"  Cortland couldn't
restrain a gasp of admiration.  "Why, Wray, your
property isn't worth what it was."

"Why not?" savagely.

"Well, for one thing," said Cortland coolly,
"your railroad connections are not what they
might be.  I might add to that, there's no
assurance they're going to be improved."

"Not unless I give it to you.  Trains are
scheduled to run on the Saguache Short Line on the
twenty-fifth of May."

"They're not going to run, Wray."  Jeff turned
on him quickly, but Cortland's eyes met his eagerly.
"That's true," he added.  "Believe it or not, as
you choose."

Jeff's sharp glance blurred quickly.  Then he
smiled and looked out of the window with his
childish stare.

"Oh, well," he said quietly, "we'll do the best
we can."

"You'd better take my advice and come in with,
us now.  We'll meet you in a fair spirit——"

"Why?" asked Jeff suddenly.  "Why should
you meet me in any kind of spirit.  You've got
things all your own way—at the upper end of the
Valley—now you say you've coppered my outlet
at Pueblo."

"Yes, that's true.  But there are other reasons
why we prefer to go no farther without an effort
to come to terms.  We're frank in admitting that
when we can accomplish anything by compromise
we prefer to do it.  This fight has been expensive.
It promises to be more expensive.  But, no matter
what your reasons, ours are greater, and no matter
what move you make, the Amalgamated can check
you.  The Amalgamated will win in the end.  It
always has.  It always will.  You've only to look
at its history——"

"Oh, I know its history," said Wray.  "It's
a history of organized crime in three states.  You've
had a succession of easy marks—of sure things.
I'm another one.  You've got a sure thing.  Why
don't you go ahead and play it.  Why do you
want to talk about it?  I wouldn't in your place.
I'd clean you out and hang your bones up the way
you did Conrad Seemuller's, for the crows to roost
on."  Wray leaned forward and brought his fist
down on the table.  "I know what your 'fair
spirit' means, Cort Bent.  It means that your
'sure thing' is a 'selling plater'; that you've played
your best cards and the tricks are still in my hand."

Cortland Bent's shoulders moved almost imperceptibly.

"You're mistaken," he said shortly.

"Well, you'll have to prove it.  I lived for some
years in Missouri."

"Then you won't consider any basis for settlement?"

"There's nothing to settle.  You started this
fight.  Now finish it.  Either your father wins—or
I do.  He wouldn't consider my figures in New
York.  He'd be less likely to consider them now.
They've gone up since then."

Cortland rose and walked to the window.

"I warn you that you're making a mistake.  This
is neither a bluff nor a threat.  I mean what I
say.  You're going to lose.  You've been hampered
by lack of railroad facilities.  How do you
like it?  Your own mines have kept your plant
busy, but you can't buy any ore and you can't
compete with us.  You'll never be able to."

"I'll take my chances."

"Then this is final?"

"Yes."  And, as Cortland Bent rose and took
up his hat, "You go back to those that sent you
here and say that on the twenty-fifth of May the
Saguache Smelting Company will be in the market
for ore.  I've never competed with your company.
I've always been content to take my profit at the
current prices.  But if it's necessary to be a hog
to remain in this business, I'll be the biggest hog
now or get out of it.  You tell your people that in
future I'll regulate my schedule to theirs, and
whatever the prices of the Amalgamated are, my
prices will be better.  Is that clear?"

"Perfectly.  I'm much obliged.  Good morning."

The interview had terminated rather suddenly—almost
too suddenly to be entirely satisfactory
to Jeff, who had at first seen in a talk with
Cortland Bent an opportunity to learn by inductive
methods something of the future plans of his
enemies.  He realized, as he watched Bent's squared
shoulders disappear through the door of an inner
office, that in this respect he had been entirely
unsuccessful.  Bent had revealed nothing that Jeff did
not know before.  Jeff had a feeling, too, that Bent
had retired with a slight advantage, even though
it had been moral rather than tactical.  Throughout
the interview Bent had preserved the same
demeanor of quiet confidence, of repression and
solidity, which, in spite of his advances, had more
than offset Jeff's violence and distemper.  What
had come over the man?  Had he found himself
at last?

In his heart Jeff had always had a feeling of
good-humored contempt for the men of Cortland Bent's
class, and the fact that Camilla preferred this one
to him had made him less tolerant of them even
than before.  He was unwilling to acknowledge to
himself the slight sense of shock he had experienced
in discovering that Cort Bent was now a foeman
worthy of his own metal.  Their trails were crossing
too often.  It wasn't healthy for either of them.

He understood now why it was that Camilla
had written him vaguely of an urgent matter about
which she could not write, requesting permission
to come West at once.  He had put it down to the
whim of a woman—as he did everything feminine
he could not understand.  It was all clear to him
now.  She wanted to be near Cortland Bent and
feared to take any definite step which might
compromise her in the eyes of her husband.  He had
had some misgivings about her letters—they had
seemed so frank, so womanly and friendly, with a
touch of regretful tenderness in them that was
unlike anything Jeff could remember when they
had been together.  But he was glad now that he
had refused her.  Seeing Bent had brought back
into Jeff's mind the whole sad history of their
mistaken marriage.  There wasn't a day when he didn't
miss her, and his business worries were never so
thick about him that her image didn't intrude.
Frequently he found himself thinking and
planning, as he used to plan, for Camilla; only to
remember bitterly in time that the battle he was fighting
was only for himself.  And now the man she loved
had come down to help the legions of autocracy
against him.  He was glad of that.  It would nerve
him for the struggle.  He could fight better with
Cort Bent on the other side.

With an effort he put the thought of Camilla from
his mind and went about his other business with a
new determination to circumvent his foes.  He
always fought better when his back was to the wall,
and his conversation with Bent had confirmed the
necessity of completing the Short Line at any cost.

The drains upon his resources had been enormous.
Three million dollars had already been spent, and
there was another million still to be provided for.
His expenses had been greater because of the
unusual impediments thrown in his way.  The
mine was paying "big," and the railroad and the
banks were still backing him, but he knew that there
was a limit to the amounts he must expect from these
quarters.  He had tried to buy rails in the open
market and found that his enemies had forestalled
him.  The mills agreed to take his orders, but
during the press of business refused to name a definite
date for delivery.  General Bent, whose friendship
was necessary to the steel interests East and West,
had seen to that.  But if the Amalgamated thought
that the lack of rails was going to stop the
construction of the Short Line, they were going to have
another guess.

Already an alternative plan had suggested itself
to Wray, a desperate, unheard-of plan which he
could never have thought of except as a last resort.
But the more he thought of it, the more convinced
he was that it was the only solution of his problem.
He would tear up the rails of the old narrow-gauge
which ran from Mesa City up to the old coal
field at Trappe.  They were light rails, old and
rusty from disuse, but they were *rails*, and by the
use of more ties and "blue-boards" for the time
would serve his purpose.  With the sidings and a
reserve supply of the D. & S. at Saguache, he
managed to figure out enough to finish the Short Line.
He knew his engineers wouldn't approve—they
couldn't approve, he knew, on any grounds but those
of expediency, for such construction was dangerous
and would make the accomplishment of any kind
of a fast schedule impossible, but they would give
him his connection—without which all of his
plans must fall to earth.  By October, or perhaps
by late summer, he would manage to get standard
rails somewhere.  It would be easier once the road
was in operation.  He couldn't help smiling when
he went into the office of the Denver and
California.  If this was the last card Bent's crowd
could play, it was on the tallies that they were to
lose the game.

His plans met with the approval of his friends,
and Jeff went back to Mesa City with a lighter
heart than when he had left it.  A hurried
conference with his engineers and directors, which
exhausted some of Jeff's strength and most of his
patience, and the old road was doomed to destruction.
Nor was Jeff satisfied until three dilapidated
flat cars loaded with Mexicans and tools were started
over the line to the coal fields.  Then he turned
with a sigh under the "Watch Us Grow" sign and
went into his private office, where an accumulation
of mining business awaited him.

But his sense of triumph was short-lived.  The
week had not ended before advices of a disquieting
nature reached him from Denver and Pueblo of a
considerable activity in the stock of the Denver
and California.  This information in itself was
not surprising, for during the past year the
rate-war and the unsettled condition of the country had
made the stock of the road particularly vulnerable
to manipulation?  But back of this movement,
Symonds, the General Manager of the road, one of
Wray's staunchest supporters, thought he detected
powerful influences.  Rumors of a more startling
character had transpired, signifying the transfer
of large blocks of the stock to Eastern investors
which seriously threatened the control of those in
power.  Other men, men of the directorate, Jeff
discovered, also showed signs of apprehension.  A
reorganization of the road might mean anything—to
Jeff it meant ruin, if the new stockholders were
in any way identified with the Chicago and Utah.
Was this Bent's crowd?  For the first time Wray
really appreciated the lengths to which his enemies
were prepared to go to accomplish his downfall.
He knew that they had already spent large sums
and had used all their influence in completing their
control of the Denver and Western, but a control of
the Denver and California!  It was simply incredible!

Letters from the banks were still more disquieting.
Conditions, they wrote, were so unsatisfactory
throughout the West that their boards of directors
had thought it advisable to call their loans on the
stock of the Denver and Saguache Railroad
Company.  The uncertainty of the development of
the Saguache Company's properties, owing to the
imperfection of their railroad connections, made this
course necessary until they secured definite and
satisfactory assurances as to the completion of the
Saguache Short Line and the value of its contracts
with the Denver and California Railroad Company.
The receipt of these letters in the same mail was a
coincidence which showed Jeff that, in spite of all
assurances to the contrary, his friends were
weakening under fire and that the enemy had invaded his
own country.  They meant, in short, that unless
he could meet the loans at once—eight hundred
thousand dollars on stock really worth two millions
and a half—those securities would fall into the
hands of the Amalgamated people.

Eight hundred thousand dollars!  It seemed a
prodigious sum of money now.  The "Lone Tree"
would bring that in the open market—of course, but
he and Pete could not sell the "Lone Tree."  It
was the backbone of his entire financial position!
Really alarmed at the sudden disastrous turn the
company's affairs had taken, he called a meeting
of Mulrennan, Larry Berkely, Weigel, Willoughby,
and other available directors, and then hurried to
Denver to see his friends in the D. & C.

Other disappointments awaited him there.  Symonds,
and Shackelton, the vice-president, advised
him for the sake of his head, as well, perhaps, as
for their own, to compromise with his enemies if
he could.  Until more light was shed as to the new
ownership of the D. & C. they could make him no
further promises of assistance either moral or
financial.  He argued with them, pleaded with
them at least for some pledge on the part of the
road with which he could reassure the banks.  They
were powerless, they said.  Their contracts, of
course, would be a basis for a suit even under a new
management.  They could—or would do nothing more.

A suit?  Jeff knew what that meant—interminable
legal proceedings, while the ties of the
Saguache Short Line rotted under the rails, and
washouts in the summer tore the roadbed to pieces;
it meant the shutting down of his coal mines, the
abandonment of his lumber camps, the complete
isolation of his mines and smelter, which, if they
did business at all, must do it under all kinds of
disadvantages.

There was only one thing left to do, and that was
to finish the Short Line and put it into operation.
Then, perhaps, the courts would uphold him and
force the D. & C. to live up to its contracts—no
matter who was in control.  But how was he to
redeem the eight hundred thousand in stock?  He
had enough available capital to finish the Short
Line, but not enough to redeem the stock, too.
He got on the Denver and Western sleeper for
Kinney that night, sore in mind and body.  He was
too tired even to think.  Larry and Pete must
help him now.  Perhaps there was some way.  He
fell into a troubled sleep, and about his ears
Cornelius Bent's railroad mocked at him in noisy
triumph.

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The arrival of the morning train from Saguache
was an event in Mesa City.  There were but two
trains a day, and it was the morning train which
brought the mail and yesterday's newspapers from
Denver.  For obvious reasons, the passenger traffic
was small, and, as almost every member of the
Saguache community was personally known to
almost every citizen of Mesa City, the greetings
as a rule were short and laconic, consisting of a
rustic nod or the mere mention of a surname.  Most
of the travelers were men and descended from the
combination baggage-smoker; but this morning
Bill Wilkinson, the conductor (and brakeman),
a person by nature taciturn, appeared upon the
platform of the rear coach bearing a lady's
English traveling bag, and winked, actually winked,
at Ike Matthews, the station master, who was
waiting for his envelope from headquarters.  At least
eight people saw that wink and fully eighteen the
handbag, and, when a pretty lady in a dove-gray
traveling suit appeared in the car doorway to be
helped down ceremoniously to the station platform,
thirty-six eyes were agog and thirty-six ears
were open to learn the meaning of the unusual occurrence;
for it was plainly to be seen that the visitor
bore every mark of consequence and came from the
East—surely from Denver—possibly from Chicago.

They saw her smile her thanks to Wilkinson,
but when she looked rather helplessly about her and
asked for a "coupé" or "station wagon" a snigger,
immediately suppressed, arose from the younger
persons in the audience.  The firm hand of Ike
Matthews now took control of the situation.

"Do you want the hotel, ma'am?" he said.

"Yes, I think so," said the lady.  "But first I
want to find Mr. Jeff Wray.  Can you tell me where
I can see him?"

Her eyes searched the cottonwood trees along
the creek opposite the station, as though she hoped
to find him there, searching in the wrong direction
for the town which had been described to her.

"Yes, ma'am, if you'll come with me."  Ike
took up the bag and led the way around the corner
of the building into Main Street, while the engineer
and fireman hung out of their cab and with the
crowd on the platform followed the slim figure with
their eyes until it vanished into the crowd at the
post-office.

A clerk in the outer room of the Development
Company's office building received the queer pair.

"Mr. Wray is in, ma'am, but he's very busy."  He
looked at her timidly.  "I don't know whether
he'll see you or not.  Who shall I say?"

The lady handed him a card, and, as he
disappeared, she fingered in her pocketbook for
change—then, after a glance at the station master,
smiled at him instead.

"I'm much obliged to you," she said gratefully.
"I think I'll stay here now.  I'll find my way to
the hotel."

Matthews put the bag on a desk, awkwardly
removed his hat and departed, while the lady sat
and waited.

In the inner office, his head in his hands, his
elbows on his desk, his brows bent over some papers,
sat Jeff, trying to bring cosmos out of the chaos
of his affairs.  His clerk entered, the card in his
hand, wondering whether he had made a mistake.
Hell had been let loose in the Development
Company for a week, and Mr. Wray, he knew, was in
no humor for interruptions.  Jeff looked up with
a frown.

"Well—what is it?"

"A lady—to see you."

Jeff's head sank into his papers again.

"Tell her I'm busy!"  Then he looked up
irritably.  "What lady?  Who is she?  I can't see
anybody to-day."

"I don't know.  She doesn't belong around here."  And
he dropped the card on the desk.

Jeff picked it up and looked at it with a scowl,
then started in amazement.  What did it mean?
He rose slowly, his brows perplexed, and put on his
coat.

"Tell her to come in," he said.  He was still
standing in the middle of the room looking at her
card when Mrs. Cheyne entered.





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.. _`THE LADY IN GRAY`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


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   THE LADY IN GRAY

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She was frankly amused at his bewilderment.

"Well," she said with a smile, "you don't
seem very pleased to see me."

"I—it's rather sudden.  I wasn't exactly
certain it was you."  He took her hand mechanically.
"What on earth are you doing out here?"

"I've come to see you—traveled two thousand
miles to tell you I'm sorry."

Jeff brought forth a chair.

"Sorry?  What for?  Oh, yes, we quarreled, didn't
we?  I remember.  It was my fault.  But I
don't understand yet.  Are you on your way to
the coast?"

"What coast?  Oh, no," coolly; "I rather thought
I'd reached my destination, but perhaps I'm mistaken."

Jeff was still regarding her curiously, as if he
couldn't be quite sure he was not dreaming.  He
pulled out his swivel chair and sat in it, facing her.

"Now tell me what this means," he insisted rather
sternly.

"I've told you.  I want to convey the impression
of begging your pardon.  Don't I do it?  I've
tried so hard.  Ugh!  Such unspeakable sleeping-cars
last night!  Such a silly little train this
morning from the place with the unpronounceable name.
I had no idea that friendship could be such a
martyrdom!"  She sighed.  "I think I really deserve
something after this."

He found that he was smiling in spite of himself.
"You do, I'm sure," he said after a pause.  "But
I don't bear you any grudge.  I expected too much
of you, I guess.  I've forgotten that long ago.  I'm
glad to see you."

"Really?" she drawled.  "You convey just the
opposite idea.  You ought to be glad, you know.
I've never been so tired in my life.  That train!
Oh, Jeff, whatever possessed you to live in such an
outlandish place?"

"This is where I belong.  If Mesa City is outlandish,
then I'm outlandish, too."

"Love me, love my dog," she laughed.  "I'd
have to love you a lot.  Perhaps it will improve on
acquaintance."  She crossed her feet and settled
more comfortably in her chair, while Jeff watched
her shrewdly.

"You can't mean you want to stay here?" he asked.

"I don't know.  That depends on you.  I've
told you the sentimental side of my journey.
Actually I'm a practical young female, with a prudent
eye for an investment."  And when her companion
smiled, "Are you laughing because you think I'm
not practical—or because you think I'm not prudent?"

"I'd hardly call you either.  In fact, I don't
know what to think.  You don't seem to belong,
somehow."

"Why not?  Once you said I spoke out like Mesa City."

"But you don't look like Mesa City."

"Horrors!" preening her hair, "I hope not."

Jeff leaned back in his chair with folded arms
and examined her—his eyes narrowing critically.
She had given two explanations of her presence,
neither of which in itself seemed sufficient.  The
real explanation, he was forced to admit, lay in the
presence itself.  She bore his scrutiny calmly,
examining him with frank interest.

"What is it you don't understand?" she asked
him, answering the question in his eyes with
another.  "Me?  Oh, you'll have to give it up.
There isn't any answer.  I'm something between
a sibyl and a sphinx.  You thought you'd guessed
me in New York, but you hadn't, you see.  I'm
neither what you thought I was, nor what you
thought I ought to be.  I'm the spirit of Self-Will.
I do as I choose.  I thought I'd like to see you,
and so I came—*Voilà*."

"I don't know what you can expect here.  The
accommodations at the hotel——"

"Oh, I can stand anything now—after your trains——"

"You'll be bored to death."

"I'm always bored to death.  But, then, this
place may have the charm of boring me in an
entirely new way.  After all," she sighed, "I might
as well be bored here as at home."

Wray got up without speaking and walked to
the window which overlooked the plains.  He
stood here a moment, his hands behind his back,
the look of perplexity deepening on his face.
Somehow Rita Cheyne didn't seem accessory to the
rather grim background of his thoughts.  For days
he had been acting the leading part in what now
promised to be a tragedy.  Rita belonged to
satirical comedy or, at the best, to the polite
melodrama.  Something of this she suddenly read in
his attitude, wondering why she had not discerned
it before.  She got up and went over to him.

"What is it, Jeff?  You're changed somehow out
here.  You seem older, bigger, browner, more
thoughtful."

"This is where I work, Rita," he said with a
slow smile.  "In New York we Westerners only
play.  I am older—yes, more thoughtful, too.
I've had a good deal to worry me——"

"Yes, I know.  I think Cortland Bent has been
behaving very badly."

Jeff made a quick gesture of protest.

"I didn't mean that," he said abruptly.  "My
worries are business worries."

"Oh!  I intruded."

"Yes, you did.  But I'm glad of it now.  I'm
going to Hell about as fast as a man can, but I
might as well do it comfortably."

"What do you mean?" she asked in alarm.

"Your relatives, the Bents.  They've got me in
a corner."

"Yes, I heard.  What will be the end of it?"

Jeff ran a finger around his throat with a
significant gesture.

"Won't you tell me about it?"

"It wouldn't interest you.  It's a long story.
They have more money than I have.  That's the
amount of it."

"I thought you were so wealthy."

"I am.  But I can't go up against the whole
of Wall Street.  They've cost me a lot.  If I won
this fight I'd be the richest man west of the
Missouri River.  It isn't over yet."  He paced the room
violently, beginning to rant, as he still did when
to talked of himself.  "No, by G—d! not yet.
They've got to come to me in the end.  They can't
get my mine."  He went over to his desk and took
out a piece of ore.  "See that, Rita; that came out
of 'Lone Tree' only yesterday.  They may get
a control of the Denver and Saguache and even
of the Development Company, but they can't get
the 'Lone Tree.'  I reckon I won't starve."

"But how can they get the Development Company?"

"The banks have called my loans—oh, you
can't understand.  If I don't meet them, the stock
will be sold.  Bent's crowd will buy it."

"Of course I don't know much about these things,
but I was wondering—how much stock is there?"

"Two million and a half.  I've borrowed eight
hundred thousand dollars."

She looked down, turning the ferrule of her
umbrella on the toe of her boot.

"Suppose some one else bought it?"

"I hadn't thought of that.  Who?"

"Me."

Jeff started forward in his chair, his eyes
blazing—then he took a step or two away from her.

"You?"

She nodded pertly.  He turned and looked at
her over his shoulder.  Then, with a warm impulse,
he seized both of her hands in his and held them
tightly in his own.

"That's white of you, Rita.  You're the real
thing.  I'll swear you are—the Real Thing—you've
got sand, too, a lot of it, and I like you for
it.  It's worth while getting in a hole to find out
who your friends are.  I won't forget this soon."

She disengaged her hands.

"Thanks," she said calmly.  "Do you agree?"

"Agree?  To what?"

"To let me buy that stock?"

He straightened and turned to his desk, uncertainly
fingering some papers there.  He was silent
so long that she repeated the question.

"No," he said at last.

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't want you to."

"I don't understand.  In New York you were
willing to have me in with you.  Why do you
object now?  Any security your banks will take
ought to be good enough for me.  Any security
my cousin Cornelius Bent wants to buy ought to
be worth having."

"It is—to him."

"Then why not to me?—it's all in the family."

He looked at her blankly a moment and then
laughed and shook his head.

"No—there's too much risk."

"I expected to risk something."

He sat down in his chair before her and put his
hands over hers.

"See here, Rita.  You'll have to let me think
this thing out and take my own time.  I never
put my friends into anything I don't believe in
myself.  If you're looking for an investment here
I'll find you something.  I know a dozen good
things."

"You can't prevent my getting that stock if I
want it," she broke in.

"The Amalgamated can."

"I'll go to the General and tell him I insist on
having it.  He's a little afraid of me."

He laughed.  "He ought to be.  I am, too."  Jeff
rose and took up his hat and Rita Cheyne's
traveling bag.  "There's one thing sure: I'm
not going to talk about this any more—not now.
You're tired.  I've got to get you fixed up
somehow.  You know I started building a place up in
the cañon, but it's not finished yet.  Mrs. Brennan
is away.  There's nothing for it but a hotel,
I guess."

"Oh, I don't care.  I'm not going to be discouraged.
I warn you I always have my own way—in
the end—in all things."

He chose to disregard the significance of the
remark and showed her out.  On their way up the
street the spirit moved him to apologize again.

"There's a bathroom at the Kinney House.
I'd better take you there.  It's pretty well kept.
Camilla stayed there once.  I wish she was here."

"You do?" quizzically.

"Why—yes."

"Then why don't you have her here?" she asked
suddenly.

A shade passed over Jeff's face.  "We went
East for the winter," he said slowly.  "I had to
come back here.  My wife likes it in New York.
It—it wasn't advisable for her to come."

"Thanks, I knew that before," she said slowly.
Further conversation was interrupted by their
arrival at the Kinney House, a frame structure
at the upper end of Main Street, where it stood in
lonely dignity, quite dwarfing its nearest neighbors,
which clambered part of the way up the slope and
then paused—as though in sudden diffidence
before the majesty of its three-storied preëminence.
It wore at this time a coat of yellow paint of a
somewhat bilious hue, but its cornices, moldings, and
the rather coquettish ornaments about the "Ladies
Entrance" were painted white.  The letters C-A-F-E
(without the accent), painted ostentatiously upon
a window, gave a touch of modernity, and the words
"Ladies' Parlor" advised the wearied traveler that
here was to be found a haven for the females of
refined and retiring dispositions.  The sound of
a piano was heard from that chaste apartment as
Mrs. Cheyne registered her long angular signature
beneath that of "Pat O'Connell, Santa Fe"; and
the strains of "The Maiden's Prayer" came forth,
followed presently by the "Carnival of
Venice."  Mrs. Cheyne smiled her tolerance.

"Do you want a room by the day, week or month,
ma'am?" asked the clerk.

"I'm a little uncertain," she said; "I may be here
only for a day or two or I may be here"—and she
glanced at Jeff—"for a month—or even longer."

"Mrs. Cheyne is looking into some mining
properties," said Jeff with an amused air.  But when
his companion followed the clerk up the stairway,
jangling a key with a huge brass tag, Jeff departed
thoughtfully.  So far as he could see, Mrs. Cheyne
had come to Mesa City with the express intention
of playing the devil.  The magnificence of her
financial offer, while it dazzled, had not blinded him.
But he was truly bewildered by her audacity,
disarmed by the recklessness of her amiability.  She
always got what she wanted in the end, she said.
What was it she wanted?  Himself?  He couldn't
help thinking so, but it made him feel like a fool.
In the East she had led him or as she led other men
on, for the mere joy of the game, and he had followed
her cautiously, aware of his own insufficiency but
delighting in the opportunities her society afforded
him to even his accounts with Camilla.  Both had
called their relation friendship for want of a better
word, but Jeff knew that friendship had another
flavor.  The night when he had last visited her he
had played his cards and had called that bluff.
But to-day he realized that she had seen his raise
and had now removed the limit from the game.
From now on it was to be for table stakes, with
Rita Cheyne dealing the cards.

And what did her amazing financial proposition
mean?  Could it be genuine?  He knew that she
was very wealthy—wealthy in the New York
way—but it was not in his experience that
sentiment and finance had anything in common.  If
her offers were genuine, her confidence in his
financial integrity and in him was extraordinary.  If
they were not, her confidence in herself was
likewise extraordinary.

Jeff smiled to himself a little uneasily.  What
would Mesa City be saying about the unexplained
arrival of a captivating female from New York
who sought him out at his office and whose claims
upon his society (unless he fled) could not be denied.
There was no chance for him to flee, even if he
wished, the condition of his business requiring his
presence here for at least a few days, and the trunk
check in his hand reminded him that he had
promised Rita Cheyne her trunk immediately, so that
she might ride with him that very afternoon.  What
was to be done?  Her ingenuity had always surprised
him, and her resources were of infinite variety.
To tell the truth, he was afraid of her, and was
willing for the first time to acknowledge it frankly
to himself.  She interested him—had always
interested him—but it seemed to be more the interest
of curiosity than that of any real affiliation.  To
be with Rita Cheyne was like going to a three-ring
circus, where one is apt to lose sight of the refined
performance on the stage just in front in bewilderment
over the acrobatic feats of the lady in spangles
at one side.  What was her real reason for coming
West to Mesa City?  He gave it up and turned in
at the office, gave the trunk check to a clerk, and
in a moment had taken up his business at the point
where Mrs. Cheyne had interrupted him.

Eight hundred thousand dollars!  If the Amalgamated
took up that stock, General Bent's crowd
would have control of the Development Company
and the Denver and Saguache Railroad Company.
If Rita Cheyne's offers were genuine—if he chose
to use her money to redeem that stock—he could
place himself on some kind of financial footing,
could entrench himself for a long battle over the
railroad connections, which he might eventually
win.  There was a chance.  He did not dare to
call in Mulrennan to talk the matter over.  Pete
had been catching at straws for a week, and Jeff
knew what his advice would be.  His superstitious
mind would look on Mrs. Cheyne's visit as a direct
interposition of Providence, as a message and an
injunction.  Jeff began to think himself mad not
to have accepted her proposition at once.  It
dangled before him temptingly—but he let it
hang there like ripe fruit upon the vine, hesitating
to reach forth and seize.  He could not believe it
was real.  It was "too aisy," as Pete would have
said.  Was he losing his nerve?  Was it that the
last victories of his enemies had sapped some of his
old assurance, or had he suddenly developed a
conscience?  He put his head in his hands and tried
to think.  If he won his fight he could double
Rita Cheyne's money in a year.  If he lost—and
he had to think of that more and more each day—the
stock might not be worth the paper it was written
on.  Rita knew all this, but she still believed
in him—more even than he believed in himself.
Women were funny.  He couldn't understand,
unless she had some motive which had not been revealed
to him.  There would be a string of some sort to that
extraordinary proposition.

He got up at last and sent a message to the Home
Ranch, ordering two horses to be sent to his office
at three o'clock.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`*La Femme Propose*`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium bold

   *La Femme Propose*

.. vspace:: 2

The wagon-road to the "Lone Tree" skirted
the mountains for a way and then wound
through a nick in the foothills into a level
vale of natural parks, meadows, and luxuriant
grass, bordered by pines and cottonwoods, beneath
which tiny streams meandered leisurely down to
the plains below.

Mrs. Cheyne emerged from the scrub-oak delightedly.

"It's like a Central Park for Brobdingnags," she
cried.  "I feel as though Apache ought to have
seven-league horseshoes.  As a piece of landscape
gardening it's remarkably well done, for Nature is
so apt to make mistakes—only Art is unerring."  She
breathed deep and sighed.  "Here it seems
Nature and Art are one.  But it's all on such a big
scale.  It makes me feel so tiny—I'm not sure that
I like it, Jeff Wray.  I don't fancy being an insect.
And the mountain tops!  Will they never come
any nearer?  We've been riding toward them for an
hour, but they seem as far away as ever.  I know
now why it was that I liked you—because your
eyes only mirrored big things—nobody can have
a mountain for a friend without joining the immortal
Fellowship.  It makes it so easy to scorn lesser
things—like bridge and teas.  Imagine a mountain
at an afternoon tea!"

Jeff rode beside her, answering in monosyllables.
The road now climbed a wood of tall oaks,
rock-pines, and spruces, through which the sunlight
filtered uncertainly, dappling fern and moss with
vagrant amber.  Somewhere near them a stream
gushed among the rocks and a breeze crooned in
the boughs.  Rita Cheyne stopped talking and
listened for she knew not what.  There was mystery
here—the voice of the primeval, calling to her
down the ages.  She glanced at Jeff, who sat loosely
on his horse, his gaze on the trail.  She had
believed he shared her own emotions, but she knew
by the look in his eyes that his thoughts were
elsewhere.  She spoke so suddenly that he looked up,
startled.

"Why don't you say something?  This place
makes me think about Time and Death—the two
things I most abhor.  Come, let's get out of here."

Apache sprang forward up the trail at the bidding
of his mistress, whose small heels pressed his flanks,
again and again, as she urged him on and out into
the afternoon sunlight beyond, while Jeff thundered
after.  He caught her at the top of a sand-ridge
half a mile away, where they pulled their horses
down to a walk.

"What was the matter?" said Jeff.  "You rode
as if the Devil was after you."

"Oh, no—I'm not afraid of the Devil.  It's
the mystery of the Infinite.  That wood—why
don't the dead oak-branches fall?  They look like
gibbets.  Ugh!"  She shuddered and laughed.
"Didn't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"Spooky."

"No.  I camped there once when I was prospecting.
That stream you jumped was Dead Man's Creek."

"He must be there yet, the dead man.  It was
like a tomb.  Who was he?"

"A soldier.  He deserted from Fort Garland and
was killed by some Mexicans.  They buried him
under a pile of stones."

"What a disagreeable place.  It's like a cemetery
for dead hopes.  I won't go back; you'll have to
take me around some other way."

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of melancholy—I hate unhappiness.
I was born to be amused—I *won't* be unhappy,"
she said almost fiercely.  "Why should I be?  I
have everything in the world that most people
want.  If I see anything I want and haven't got,
I go and get it."

"You're lucky."

She shrugged.  "So people say.  I do as I please.
I always have and always will.  You were surprised
to see me here.  I told you why I came.  I wanted
to see you.  You were the only person in New York
who did not bore me to extinction.  If it gives me
pleasure to be here, this is the place where I ought
to be.  That's logical, isn't it?"

"It sounds all right.  But you won't stay here
long," he said.

"Why not?"

"You couldn't stand it.  There's nothing to
do but ride."

"I'd rather ride than do anything else."

Jeff looked straight forward over his horse's ears,
his eyes narrowing, his lips widening in a smile.

"Well—if you don't see what you want—ask
for it," he said slowly.

"I will.  Just now, however, I don't want
anything except an interest in your business.  You're
going to let me have it, aren't you, Jeff?  You'd
take some stranger in.  Why not me?  I'm the most
innocuous stockholder that ever lived.  I always
do whatever anybody tells me to do."

"You don't realize the situation.  I've told you
I'm in a dangerous position.  With that stock in
my possession again, all my holdings would be
intact and I might stand a long siege—or perhaps
be able to make a favorable compromise—but
there's no certainty of it.  I don't know what
they've got up their sleeves.  As it is, I stand to
lose the greater part of my own money, but I'm
not going to lose yours."

"I don't believe you're going to lose.  I'm not
quite a fool.  Those papers you showed me don't
prove anything.  The Development Company has
two hundred thousand acres of land worth twenty
dollars an acre and the coal fields besides.  That's
good enough security for me."

"It would be good enough security for any one
if we had our connection.  I could make you a lot
of money."  He broke off impatiently.  "See here,
Rita, don't press me in this matter, I'd rather wait
a while.  I've got a few days before those notes are
due.  Something may turn up——"

"Which will let me out—thanks, I'm not going
to be left out.  I know what you've done in these
mountains and in this country, and I believe in
you as much as I ever did.  I'd like you to let
me help you, and I'm not afraid of losing—but
if I do lose, it won't kill me.  Perhaps I'm richer
than you think I am.  I'm willing to wait.  You'll
be rich again some day, and I'll take my chances.
They can't keep you down, Jeff—not for long."

Jeff thrust forth a hand and put it over hers.

"You're solid gold, Rita, and you're the best
friend I ever had.  I can't say more than that."

She smiled happily.  "I've been hoping you'd
say that.  It's worth coming out here for.  I want
to prove it, though—and I hope you'll let me."

The road now turned upward toward the railroad
grade.  As they reached the crest of the hill Jeff
pointed to the left at the mills and the smelter
buildings hanging tier on tier down the side of the
mountain.  Below in a depression of the hills a
lake had formed, surrounded by banks of reddish
earth.  The whole scene was surpassing ugly,
and the only dignity it possessed was lent by the
masses of tall black stacks, above which hung a
pall of smoke and yellow gases.  Rita Cheyne gasped.
"So that's the bone of contention?  I thought it
would be something like the New York Public
Library or the Capitol at Washington!  Why, Jeff,
it's nothing but a lot of rusty iron sheds!"

"Yes," he drawled, "we don't go in much for
architecture out here.  It's what's inside those
sheds that counts.  We've got every known appliance
for treating ore that was ever patented, with
a wrinkle or two the Amalgamated hasn't."

They rode around the lake while Wray explained
everything to her, and then up the hill toward the
trestles and ore-dumps of the "Lone Tree" mine.
Wray's struggles for a right-of-way to the markets
of the country showed no reflection here.  From
two small holes in the mountain side cars emerged
at intervals upon their small tracks and dumped
their loads at the mill, from which there came a
turmoil of titanic forces.  Jeff offered to show his
companion the workings, but she refused.

"No, I think not," she said.  "It's too noisy
here.  I haven't finished talking to you, and I want
to ride."

And so they turned their horses' heads into
another trail, which descended among the rocks
and scrub-oak, after a while emerging at the edge
of a great sand-dune which the wind had tossed
up from the valley below—a hill of sand a thousand
feet high, three miles wide and six miles long, a
mountain range in miniature, in which trees, rocks,
and part of a mountain were obliterated.  Even the
Great Desert had not presented to Rita Cheyne
such a scene of desolation.  Their horses stopped,
sniffed the breeze, and snorted.  Jeff pointed into
the air, where some vultures wheeled.

Mrs. Cheyne shuddered.  "It looks like Paradise
Lost.  We're not going there?"

"No—I only wanted you to see it.  There's
a thousand million dollars of gold in that sandpile."

"Let it stay there.  I think it's a frightfully
unpleasant place.  Why do you show me all these
things when all I want to do is to talk?"  She turned
her horse's head, and they followed a slight trail
between groves of aspen trees, a shimmering
loveliness of transparent color.  "You're not giving
me much encouragement, Jeff.  You didn't believe
in my friendship in New York, but you're trying
your best to keep me from proving it here."

"I do believe it now.  Didn't I tell you so?"

"Yes, but you don't show it.  What do you think
my enemies in New York are saying of my
disappearance?  What will they say when they know I've
come out here to you?  Not that I care at all.
Only I think that *you* ought to consider it."

"I do," he said briefly.  "Why do you make such
a sacrifice?"

"I never make sacrifices," she said, eluding him
skillfully, "even for my friends.  Don't make that
mistake.  I've told you I came because I'd rather
be here than in New York.  If I heard that your
financial enemies were trying to ruin you, that only
made me the more anxious to come.  Besides, I
had an idea that you might be lonely.  Was I right?"

"Yes—I am."

"Was, you mean."

"Yes—was," he corrected.  "I've been pretty
busy, of course, night as well as day, but after New
York this place is pretty quiet."

"Did you miss me?"

"Yes," frankly, "I did—you and I seem to get
on pretty well.  I think we always will."

"So do I.  I've always wondered if I'd ever meet
a man who hadn't been spoiled.  And I was just
about ready to decide that he didn't exist when
you came along.  The discovery restored my faith
in human nature.  It was all the more remarkable,
too, because you were married.  Most married men
are either smug and conceited, or else dejected and
apprehensive.  In either case they're quite useless
for my purpose."

"What is your purpose?" he asked.

"Psychological experiment," she returned glibly.
"Some naturalists study beetles, others butterflies
and moths.  I like to study men."

"Have you got me classified?"

"Yes—you're my only reward for years of patient
scientific endeavor.  The mere fact that you're
married makes no difference, except that as a
specimen you're unique.  Do you wonder that I
don't want to lose you?"

"I'm not running away very fast."

"No.  But the fact remains that you're not my
property," she answered, frowning.  "I can't
see—I've never been able to see—why you ever
married, any more than I can see why I did.  I'm
quite sure that you would have made me an
admirable husband, just as I'm sure that I would have
made you an admirable wife.  You don't mind my
speaking plainly, do you?  I'm thinking out loud.
I don't do it as a rule.  It's a kind of luxury that
one doesn't dare to indulge in often.  I have so
many weak points in which you are strong, and I
have a few strong ones in which you are weak, we
could help each other.  You could make something
of me, I'm sure.  I'm not as useless as I seem to
be; sometimes I think I have in me the material
to accomplish great things—if I only knew where
to begin, or if I had some one who is in the habit
of accomplishing them to show me how.  That
is why I wanted to help you.  It struck me as a
step in the right direction."

"It was," he ventured, "only it was too big a step."

"One can't do big things by halves," she insisted.
"Money is the only thing I have that you lack.  It
is the only thing that I can give—that's why I want
to give it—so that you can use it as a measure of
my sincerity.  I'd like to make you happy,
too——"  She paused, and her voice sank a note.  "Why
should you be unhappy?  You don't deserve it.  I
know you don't.  I haven't any patience with women
who don't know a good thing when they have it."

"Perhaps I'm not as good a thing as I seem.  You
yourself are not beyond making mistakes, Rita."

"Oh, Cheyne?  I didn't make that mistake,
Cheyne did.  He thought marriage was a
sentimental holiday, when everybody nowadays knows
that it's only a business contract.  Don't let's
talk of Cheyne.  I can still hear the melancholy
wail of his 'cello.  I want to forget all of that.
You have helped me to do it.  I've been looking
at you from every angle, Jeff Wray, and I find that
I approve of you.  Your wife has other views.
She married you out of pique.  You married her
because she was the only woman in sight.  You
put a halo around her head, dressed her up in tinsel,
set her on a gilt pedestal, and made believe that
she was a goddess.  It was a pretty game, but it
was only a game after all.  Imagine making a saint
of a woman of this generation!  People did—back
in the Dark Ages—but the ages must have been
very dark, or they'd never have made such a mistake.
I've often thought that saints must be very
uncomfortable, because they were human once.  Your
wife was human.  She still is.  She didn't want
to be worshipped.  She hadn't forgotten my cousin
Cortland, you see——"

"What's the use of all this, Rita?" said Wray
hoarsely.  "I don't mind your knowing.  Everybody
else seems to.  But why talk about it?
Let sleeping dogs lie."

She waved her hand in protest.  "One of the
dearest privileges of friendship is to say as many
disagreeable things as one likes.  I'm trying to
show you how impossible you are to a woman of
her type, and how impossible your wife is to you."

"I'd rather you wouldn't."

"She marries you to prove to my cousin Cortland
that he isn't the only man in the world, and then
spends an entire winter in New York proving to
everybody that he is.  There hasn't been a day
since you left that they haven't been together,
riding, motoring, going to the theatre and opera.
It has reached the point when people can't think
of asking one of them to dinner without including
the other.  If you don't know all this, it's time you
did.  And I take it as a melancholy privilege to
be the one to tell you of it.  It's too bad.  No
clever woman can allow herself to be the subject
of gossip, and when she does she has a motive
for what she's doing or else she doesn't care.
Perhaps you know what Mrs. Wray's motive is.  If
you have an understanding with her you haven't
done me the honor of telling it."

"No," he muttered, "I'm not in the habit of
talking of my affairs.  You know we don't get
along.  No amount of talking will help matters."

"What are you going to do?"

Wray's eyes were sullen.  Rita Cheyne chose to
believe that he was thinking of his wife.  But as he
didn't reply at once she repeated the question.
It almost seemed as though her insistence annoyed
him, but his tone was moderate.

"What is it to you, Rita?"

She took a quick glance at him before she replied.

"It means a good deal to me," she went on more
slowly.  "To begin with, I haven't any fancy for
seeing my best friend made a fool of by the enemies
of his own household.  It seems to me that your
affairs and hers have reached a point where something
must be done.  Perhaps you've already decided."

"I've left her—she's in love with Cort Bent.
I have proof of it.  We made a mistake, that's all."

"Of course you did," she said.  "I'm glad that
you acknowledge it.  Are you going back to New York?"

"I haven't decided.  That depends on many
things.  She thinks I'm in love with you."

They had come to a piece of rough ground sown
with boulders and fallen trees, through which their
horses picked their way carefully.  Rita Cheyne
watched the broad back of her companion with a
new expression in her eyes.  He had never seemed
so difficult to read as at this moment, but she
thought that she understood and she found something
admirable in his reticence and in his loyalty
to his wife.  In a moment the trail widened again
as they reached the levels, and her horse found its
way alongside his.

"She thinks you're in love with me?  What does
she know about love?  What do I know about it? or
you?  Love is a condition of mind, contagious in
extreme youth, but only mildly infectious later
in life.  Why should any one risk his whole future
on a condition of mind?  You feel sick but you don't
marry your doctor or your trained nurse because
he helps to cure you.  Why don't you?  Simply
because you get well and then discover that your
doctor has a weak chin or disagreeable finger ends.
When you get well of love, if you marry to cure
it, there's nothing left but Reno.  I don't believe
in love.  I simply deny its existence—just as I
refuse to believe in ghosts or a personal Devil.  I
resent the idea that your wife should believe you're
in love with me.  You find pleasure in my society
because I don't rub you the wrong way, and I like
you because I find less trouble in getting on with
you than with anybody else."

"You're a cold-blooded proposition, Rita," said
Wray smiling.

"Yes—if it's cold-blooded to think—and to
say what one thinks.  But I'm not so cold-blooded
that I could marry one man when I liked another—a
man with whom I had no bond of sympathy.
Cheyne was the nearest approach I could find to
the expression of a youthful ideal—people told
me I was in love with him—so I married him.
Of course, if I had had any sense—but what's the
use?  I've learned something since then.  To-day I
would marry—not for love, but for something
finer—not because of a condition of mind or a
condition of body, but because of a stronger, more
enduring relation, like that between the lime and
sand that build a house.  I'd marry a man because
I wanted to give him my friendship and because I
couldn't get on without his friendship, and if the
house we built would not endure, then no marriage
will endure."

"You mean, Rita," Wray interrupted with sober
directness, "that you'd marry me if you could?"

She flushed mildly.  "I didn't say so.  I said I
would marry for friendship because it's the biggest
thing in the world.  I don't mind saying I'd marry
you.  It's quite safe, because, obviously, I can't."

Jeff looked at her uncertainly and then laughed
noisily.

"Rita, you're a queer one!  I never know when the
seriousness stops and the fun begins."

She smiled and frowned at the same time.

"The fun hasn't begun.  I mean what I say.
Why shouldn't a woman say what she thinks?  A
man does.  I shock you?"

"No—it's part of you somehow.  Speak out.
I'll tell you whether I believe you or not when you're
through."

"I suppose I'm what people call a modern woman.
If I am, I'm glad of it.  Most women fight hard for
their independence.  I've simply taken mine.  I
say and do and shall always say and do precisely
what comes into my mind.  I've no doubt that I'll
make enemies.  I've already succeeded in doing
that.  I'll also probably shock my friends—but
I've thrown away my fetters and refuse to put them
on again because some silly prig believes in living
up to feminine traditions.  I haven't any sympathy
with tradition.  Tradition has done more to hinder
the enlightened development of the individual
than any single force in history.  Tradition means
old fogyism, cant and hypocrisy.  I never could
see why, because our fathers and mothers were
stupid, we have to be stupid, too.  Imagine an age
in which it was not proper to cross one's legs if one
wanted to—an age of stiff-backed chairs, to sit
in which was to be tortured—when every silly
person denied himself a hundred harmless, innocent
amusements simply because tradition demanded
it!  We live in an age of reason.  If a woman loves
a man, why shouldn't she tell him so?"





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.. _`*L'homme Dispose*`:

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   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   *L'homme Dispose*

.. vspace:: 2

Jeff Wray had listened in curiosity, then
in amazement, his eyes turned toward the
Saguache Peak, whose snow-cap caught a
reflection of the setting sun.  He had accustomed
himself to unusual audacities on the part of his
companion, but the frankness of her speech had
outdone anything he could remember.  When he
turned his look in her direction it was with a shrewd
glance of appraisement like the one she felt in the
morning when she had first appeared in his office.
As they reached an opening in the trees Jeff halted
his horse and dismounted.

"It's early yet.  Let's sit for a while.  Throw
your bridle over his head.  He'll stand."

Mrs. Cheyne got down, and they sat on a rock
facing the slope, which dropped away gently to the
valley.  Jeff took out his tobacco and papers and
deftly rolled a cigarette, while Rita Cheyne watched
him.  He offered to make her one, but she refused.

"You've got me guessing now, Rita," he said with
a laugh.  "More than once in New York I
wondered what sort of a woman you really were.  I
thought I'd learned a thing or two before I came
away, but I'll admit you've upset all my calculations.
I've always known you were clever when it came to
the real business of disguising your thoughts.  I
know you never mean what you say, but I can't
understand anybody traveling two thousand
miles to create a false impression.  You know as
well as I do that all this talk of yours about
friendship is mere clever nonsense.  I know what
friendship means, and I guess I know what love means,
too, but there isn't any way that you can mix them
up so that I won't know one from the other."

"I'm not trying to mix them up."

"You're trying to mix *me* up then."  He took
her hand in his and made her look at him.  "You've
been playing with me for some time.  I was a
different kind of a breed from anything you'd been
used to in New York, and you liked to wind me up
so that you could see the wheels go 'round.  You've
had a lot of fun out of me in one way or another,
and you still find me amusing."

She stopped indignantly.

"Don't you believe in me?"

"No.  The things you say are too clever to be
genuine for one thing.  You're too cold-blooded
for another."

"One can't think unless one is cold-blooded."

"When a woman's in love she doesn't want to think."

"I'm not in love—I simply say I'll marry you,
that's all."

"You're talking nonsense."

"I never was saner in my life.  I want you to
believe in my kind of friendship."

"Eight hundred thousand dollars' worth of
friendship is not to be sneezed at."

"Stop, Jeff, you're brutal.  I won't listen."

"You've got to.  I've listened to you.  Now
you must listen to me, and I'm going to make you
play the game with your cards above the table.
So far as I can understand, you hold the New
York record for broken hearts to date, and I was
warned that you had strewn your wrecks along the
whole front of Central Park East.  But I suppose
I was too much flattered when you showed me
attention to take to my heels.  I liked you and I
wanted you to like me.  Perhaps we both liked
each other for the same reason—with the same
motive—curiosity.  You put me in odd situations
just to see what I'd do.  I liked to be with you.
You purred like a kitten in the sun, and I liked to
hear you, so I was willing to perform for that
privilege.  You claimed me for a friend, but you tried
your best to make me lose my head.  That's true,
you can't deny it.  I didn't lose it, because—well,
because I had made up my mind that I wouldn't.
I don't know whether you were disappointed or
not, but I know you were surprised, because you
weren't in the habit of missing a trick when you
played that game."

She withdrew her hand abruptly and turned her
head away.  "That isn't true," she murmured.
"You must not speak to me so."

"I've got to.  Every word of what I say is true—and
you know it."

"It's not true now."

"Yes, it's true now.  I know how much you really
care about me.  You've got so much in life that
you're never really interested in anything except
the things you can't get.  You like me because
you know I'm out of your reach and you can't have
me even if I wanted you to.  You're a great artist,
but I don't think you really ever fooled me much.
You like to run with a fast and Frenchy set just
because it gives your cleverness a chance it couldn't
have with the Dodos, but you don't mind being
talked about, because your conscience is clear;
you like the excitement of running into danger
just to prove your cleverness in getting out of it.
See here, Rita, this time you're going too far.
I suppose I ought to feel very proud of the faith
you put in me and your willingness to trust
yourself so completely in my hands.  I guess I do.
But things are different with me somehow.  I
told you I was going to Hell pretty fast, and I'm
not in a mood to be trifled with."

"I'm not trifling."  She had caught a sinister
note in his voice and looked up at him in alarm.

"There's a way to prove that."

"How?"

"This!"

He put his arms around her, turned her face to
his, and held it there while he looked a moment
into her eyes.  But she struggled and held away
from him, suddenly discovering something unfamiliar
in the roughness of his touch and the expression
in his eyes.

"Let me go!" she cried, struggling desperately
to be free.

"You'll kiss me."

"No—never, not after that."

"After what?"

"The way you speak to me.  You're rough——"

"I'll not let you go until you tell me why you
came here.  If you love me, you'll look in my eyes
and tell me so."

"I don't love you," she panted, still struggling.
"I never shall.  Let me go, I say!"

He laughed at her.  Her struggles were so futile.
Art could not avail her here.  She realized it at
last and lay quietly in his arms, her eyes closed,
her figure relaxed, while he kissed her as he pleased.

"Will you tell me you love me?"

"No.  I loathe you."

Then she began struggling again; he released her,
and she flung away and stood facing him, her hat
off, hair in disorder, cheeks flaming, her body
trembling with rage and dismay.

"Oh, that you could have touched me so!"

"Why, Rita——" he began.

"Don't speak to me——" She moved toward
the horses.  "I'm going," she asserted.

"Where?"

"To Mesa City."

"How can you?  You don't know the way."

"I'll find the way.  Oh——"  She stamped her
foot in rage and then, without other warning, sank
on a rock near by and burst into tears.

Jeff Wray rose uncertainly and stared at her,
wide-eyed, like other more practiced men in similar
situations, unaccountably at a loss.  He had
acted on impulse with a sense of fitting capably
into a situation.  He watched her in amazement,
for her tears were genuine.  No woman was clever
enough to be able to cry like that.  There was no
feminine artistry here.  She was only a child who
had made the discovery that her doll is stuffed with
sawdust.  He realized that perhaps for the first
time he saw her divested of her artifice, the polite
mummery of the world, the real Rita Cheyne,
who all her life had wanted to want something and,
now that she had found what it was, could not have
it just as she wanted it.  It was real woe, there was
no doubt of that, the pathetic woe of childhood.
He went over to her and laid his hand gently on her
shoulder.  But she would not raise her head, and
it almost seemed as though she had forgotten him.
He stood beside her for some moments, looking down
at her with a changing expression.  The hard lines
she had discovered in his face were softened, the
frown relaxed, and at his lips there came the flicker
of a smile.

"I—I'm sorry," he said at last.  "I—I made
a mistake, Rita.  I made a mistake."

The sobs began anew.

"How—how could you—treat me so?"

There was no reply to that, so he stood silently
and waited for the storm to pass.  Meanwhile he
had the good taste not to touch her again.  But as
the sobs diminished he repeated:

"I made a mistake, Rita.  You made me think——"

"Oh!" only.  Her face appeared for a moment
above her arms and then instantly disappeared.
"You're odious!"

"Why, Rita," he said with warm frankness,
"how could I believe anything else?  All your talk
of friendship; why, you asked me to marry you.
What did you expect of me?"

"Not that—not what you did—the way you did it."

"You forgave me once."

She raised her head, careless of the tears which
still coursed.

"Yes, I forgave you then.  But not now.  I
can't forgive you now.  No man ever kissed a
woman the way you kissed me unless he is mad about
her—or despises her."

"Despises——"

"Yes.  You might as well ask me to forgive you
for murdering my brother.  You've killed
something inside me—my pride, I think.  I can
never—never forget that."

She got up and turned her back to him, fingering
for her handkerchief.  She had none.  He slowly
undid the kerchief from around his own neck and
put it in her hand.

"Don't cry, Rita."

"Cry?"  She wheeled around, still staunching
her tears.  "No, I'll not cry.  I was a fool to cry.
I'll not cry any more.  I cried because—because
I was disappointed—that any one I trusted could
be so base."

"I'm not so dreadful as all that.  You must
admit——"

"I'll admit nothing—except that I made a
mistake, too.  It hasn't been a pleasant awakening.
I know now what those kisses meant."

Wray's incomprehension was deeper.

"I wish *I* did," he said.  "I was sure they
wouldn't do you any harm.  You wouldn't have
been so frank with me if you hadn't been pretty
sure of yourself."

"That was my mistake.  I was so sure of myself
that I didn't think it necessary to be sure of
you."  And while Jeff was trying to understand what she
meant, she went on:

"Those were not *my* kisses.  They were
impersonal—and might have been given to any
woman—that is, any woman who would allow them.
Each of them a separate insult—Judas
kisses—treacherous kisses—kisses of retaliation—of
revenge——"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"You've been using me to square your accounts
with your wife—that's all," scornfully.  "As if
you didn't know."

He flushed crimson and bit his lips.  "That's
not true," he muttered.  "What does it matter to my
wife?  Why should she care who I kiss—or why?"

"It doesn't matter to her, I suppose," she said,
slightly ironical; "she is her own mistress again,
but it does to you.  Curiously enough you're still
in love with your wife.  She's in love with somebody
else.  Naturally it wounds your self-esteem—that
precious self-esteem of yours that's more
stupendous than the mountain above you.  She
hurts you, and you come running to me for the
liniment.  Thanks!  You've come to the wrong shop,
Mr. Wray."

Jeff's brows darkened.  He opened his mouth
as though to speak, but thought better of it.
As Rita Cheyne took up the bridle of her horse and
led him to a rock that she might mount, Jeff interfered.

"One moment, Rita.  I think we'd better have
this thing out.  I'm beginning to understand better
the width of the breach between us—it's widened
some to-day—and I don't believe you're going to
try to make it up to-morrow.  I'm sorry, but I'm
not going to have any more misunderstandings,
either.  I want you to forgive me if you can.  I've
cared for you a good deal—enough to make me
sorry you were only fooling.  Things don't seem to
be going my way, and I've had lot of thinking to
do that hasn't made me any too cheerful.  I don't
seem to see things just the way I did.  This fight
has made me bitter.  I've got everything against
me—*your* world, the organized forces of your world
against a rank outsider.  I belong to the people
who work with their hands.  I've always been pretty
proud of that.  I went East and mixed up with a
lot of your kind of people.  I had a good time.
They asked me to their houses, gave me their wine
and food.  They knew what they were about.
They had need of me, but no matter what they
said or did they never for a moment let me forget
what I'd come from.  You were the only one of
all that crowd who tried to make me feel differently.
Was it any wonder that I was grateful for it?"

"Your gratitude takes a curious form."

He held up a hand in protest.

"Then you—you liked me because I said just
what I thought whenever I thought it, but even
with you I never forgot it wasn't possible for us
ever to reach an understanding of perfect equality.
You played with life—you had been taught to.
Life is a kind of joke to you.  People are incidents,
only important when they give you amusement.
I've been more important than others for that
reason—because I gave you more amusement
than others, but there's never been any doubt
that I was only an incident.  To me life is a grim
problem—I've felt its weight, and I know.  To-day
you talked of making a marriage as I would speak
of making a cigarette.  It was too cold-blooded
even for humour——"

"You refuse me then, do you, Jeff?" she laughed.
But he made no reply to her banter.

"I've done with marriage," he went on.  "I
tried it and I failed, just as you tried it and failed,
but I'm not ready, as you are, to make a joke of it.
Failures are not the kind of things I like to joke about.
You joke because joking makes you forget.  I'm
not trying to forget.  I couldn't if I wanted to.
I've learned that out here.  My wife can do as she
likes.  If she wants to marry Cort Bent I'll give
her a divorce, but as for me, I've done with it—for good."

Jeff had sunk to the rock beside her, his head in
his hands, while she stood a little way off looking
down at him.  Their relative attitudes seemed
somehow to make a difference in her way of thinking of
him.  In spite of the light bitterness of her mood,
she, too, felt the weight of his thoughts.

"Do you mean to say," she murmured, half in
pity, half in contempt, "that you still love your wife
as much as this?"

But he made no reply.

"It's really quite extraordinary," she went on
with a manner which seemed to go with upraised
brows and a lorgnon.  "You're really the most
wonderful person I've ever known.  This is the
kind of fidelity one usually associates with the
noble house-dog.  I'm sure she'd be flattered.  But
why will you give her a divorce?  Since you're not
going to marry—what's the use?"

He rose and went to the horses.  "Come," he
said, "it's getting late.  Let's get back."

She refused his help, mounted alone, and silently
they rode down the slope through the underbrush,
where after a while Jeff found a trail in the open.

"Does this lead to Mesa City?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Good-by, then."  She flourished her hand and,
before he realized it, was off and had soon
disappeared from sight.  He urged his horse forward
into a full gallop, but saw that he could not catch
her.  Apache was the faster horse, and his own
animal carried too much weight.  So after a few
miles he gave up the race, walked his winded horse,
and gave himself up to his thoughts.

The exercise had refreshed his mind, and he was
able to think with calm amusement of the little
comedy in which he had just been an actor.  What
a spoiled child she was!  He couldn't understand
why he had ever been afraid of her.  It was only
pity he felt now, the pity of those tears, the only
really inartistic thing Rita had ever been guilty
of, for her face had not been so pretty when she cried.
And yet they appealed to him more strongly than
any token she had ever given him.  What did they
mean?  He had hurt her pride, of course—he had
had to do that, but somehow his conscience didn't
seem to trouble him much about the state of Rita's
heart.  Love meant something different to him
from the kind of cold, analytical thing Rita Cheyne
was capable of.  If it hadn't been for those tears!
They worried him.

As he reached the edge of a wood he caught a
glimpse of her just disappearing over the brow of
a hill, half a mile away.  So he urged his horse
forward.  It wouldn't do to have her ride into Mesa
without him.  He rode hard and suddenly came
upon her kneeling at the border of a stream, dipping
his bandana into the water and touching her eyes.
When she saw him she looked up pertly, and he saw
that she was only a child washing its face.

"Hello!" she said.  "I was waiting for you.  Do
you see what I'm doing?  It's a rite.  Do I look
like Niobe?  I'm washing my hands—of you."

Jeff got down and stood beside her.

"Do be sensible, Rita."

"I am—am I clean?  You haven't a powder
puff about you—have you?"

"You're going to tell me you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive.  If you think there's
anything to forgive, I'll forgive—of course."  She
got up from her knees, wiping her face, sat down
on a tree trunk, and motioned him to sit beside her.

"Jeff," she said, "I've a confession to make.
You know what it is, because you're cleverer than
you have any right to be.  I don't love you really,
you know, and I'm pretty sure it isn't in me to
love any one—except myself.  It has always made
me furious to think that I couldn't do anything
with you.  From the first I set my heart on having
you for myself, not because I wanted to laugh at
you—I couldn't have done that—but because
you were in love with your wife."

"Why—do you hate her so?"

"I don't.  I don't hate any one.  But she
irritated me.  She was so self-satisfied, so genuine, so
handsome—three things which I am not."  She
waited for him to contradict her, but Jeff was
frowning at vacancy.

"Just to satisfy my self-esteem—which is almost
as great as yours, Jeff Wray—I would have moved
mountains to win, and I even let you drag my pride
in the dust before I discovered that I couldn't.
I die pretty hard, but I know when I'm dead."

"Don't, Rita; you and I are going to be better
friends than ever."

"No, Jeff, I'm going East to-morrow.  I don't
want to see you.  To see you would be to remind me
of my insufficiencies."

"You've made a friend."

"No," shaking her head, "that won't do.  It
never does.  I may have tried to deceive you, but
I know better.  Friendship is masculine—or it's
feminine.  It can't be both.  I'm going away at
once.  I'm not going to see you again."

"Oh, yes, you are.  To-morrow we'll——"

"No.  I'd go to-night if there was a train.  I
want you to do one thing for me, though.  Will you?"

"If I can."

"That money—the money for that stock.  I
want to leave it with you—to use or not to use as
you think best.  I've got a great deal of money—much
more than is good for me."

Jeff shook his head.

"No, Rita, no.  I can't do that.  If I'm going
to lose, I'll lose alone."

"But if you win?" she turned and gave him her
hand.  "You will.  I've sworn you will.  And
here's luck on it."  Instead of clasping her hand,
as she intended he should, he raised it to his lips
and kissed it gently—as under different conditions
he might have kissed her lips.  She looked down at
the top of his head and closed her eyes a moment,
but when he looked up she was smiling gaily.

"You're a good sport, Rita," he said.

"Yes," she said coolly, "I believe I am."

They rode into Mesa City slowly.  The valley
was already wrapped in shadow, but above them the
upper half of Saguache Peak was afire with the
sunset.  The evening train was in and had puffed
its way up to the yard.  There was a crowd at the
post-office waiting for mail, and scattered groups
here and there were chatting with the arrivals.
Wray and Mrs. Cheyne climbed the slope to the
Kinney House, where a cowboy from the Home
Ranch was waiting for their horses.  They
dismounted and went indoors to the office, where a
solitary lady in a dark dress was signing her name
to the hotel register.  At the sound of their voices
she turned and straightened, suddenly very pale
and tense.  And then, before Jeff could speak, turned
again quickly to the clerk and said quietly:

"If you'll show me the way up at once, please,
I'd like to go to my room."





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.. _`PRIVATE MATTERS`:

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   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   PRIVATE MATTERS

.. vspace:: 2

Jeff followed Camilla's departing back with
blank bewilderment, too amazed to utter a
word.  Rita Cheyne looked at Jeff's face and
then laughed.

"Act Three will now begin," she said gaily.
"It's really too good, Jeff.  But it's time for the
lady-villain to die.  I'm off stage now, so
good-by."

She gave him her hand, and he took it mechanically.

"I'll see you to-morrow," he said gravely.

"No, this is good-by.  There isn't any to-morrow
for us.  I won't see you, Jeff.  I think perhaps you
won't want to see me now."

"This will make no difference," he stammered.
"Don't you see—I've got to make *her* understand."

"You mean—my reputation.  She'd never
understand that.  You'll be wasting time.  Don't
bother.  I'm going to Denver in the morning.
No, not a word——"

He tried to hold her, but the clerk came down at
this moment, so, with a last flourish of the hand, she
sped past him and up the stairs.

Jeff stood for a moment in the middle of the floor,
irresolute.  Then he turned to the desk and asked
the number of Mrs. Wray's room.

"Parlor B, Mr. Wray, but she told me to say
that she did not want to be disturbed."

Jeff hesitated, and then, with a frown: "That
doesn't matter," he growled.  "I'll explain.  I'm
going up," and he made his way to the stairs.

The room, he remembered, was at the front of
the house.  He had occupied it before they built
his sleeping quarters in the office building.  He
found the door readily and knocked, but there was
no response.  He knocked again.  This time her
voice inquired.

"It's Jeff, Camilla," he said.  "I must see you
at once.  Let me in, please."

Another long pause of indecision.  He might
have been mistaken, but he fancied he could hear
Rita Cheyne's light laugh somewhere down the
corridor.  He did not want a scene—as yet his
and Camilla's misfortunes had not reached the ears
of Mesa City.  He was still debating whether he
would knock again or go away when the key turned
in the lock and the door was opened.

"Come in," said Camilla, and he entered.  She
had removed her hat, and the bed and pillow already
bore traces of her weight.

"I'm sorry to intrude," he began awkwardly.

"Shut the door," she suggested.  "Perhaps it's
just as well that people here shouldn't know any
more of our private affairs than is necessary."

He obeyed and turned the key in the lock.  His
wife had moved to the window and stood, very
straight and pale, waiting for him to speak.  She
seemed, if anything, slimmer than when he had seen
her last, and her hair, which had fallen loosely about
her shoulders, was burnished with the last warm
glow from Saguache Peak.  He had never thought
her more beautiful, but there were lines at her eyes
and mouth which the growing shadows of the
room made deeper.

"I suppose you're willing to believe the worst
of me," he began, "and of her.  Perhaps I ought to
tell you first that she only came here this
morning—that she's going away to-morrow——"

"It isn't necessary to explain," she interrupted.
"I hope Mrs. Cheyne won't go on my account.  I'm
going, too, in the morning.  Under the circumstances,
I'm sorry I couldn't have waited a day or
two, but I had to see you at once."

"You had to see me?  Has something gone
wrong in New York?  What is——?"

"Oh, no," wearily.  "Everything in New York
is all right.  I've had everything packed in boxes
and have given up the apartment at the hotel."

Jeff's brows tangled in mystification.

"You've given up the apartment?  Why?"

"I'm not going to live there any more.  I'm
going to Kansas—to Abilene.  I'm very tired,
Jeff, and I need a rest."

"Camilla!"  He pushed an armchair toward her
and made her sit.  "You do look as if you—you're
not sick, are you?"

"Oh, no—just tired of everything."  Her voice
was low, as it always had been, but it had no life
in it.  "Just tired of being misunderstood.  I
won't explain, and I don't expect you to.  I couldn't
listen if you did.  I came here because I had to
come, because no matter what our relations are it
was my duty to see you at once and tell you
something of the greatest importance."

He stood behind her chair, his fingers close to her
pallid cheeks, gently brushed by the filaments of her
hair, the perfume of which reached him like some
sweet memory.  He leaned over her, aching for
some token that would let him take her in his arms
and forget all the shadows that had for so long
hung about them.  But as she spoke, he straightened,
glowering at the wall beyond her.

"It isn't—it's nothing—to do with you—and
Cort Bent——?"

"Oh, no, not at all.  I haven't seen Cort for
some time.  It's about—about the General."

"General Bent?"  Jeff gave a quick sigh, paced
across the room, and then turned with a frown.
"I'm not interested in General Bent," he muttered.
"For me he has stopped being a person.  He's
only a piece of machinery—a steel octopus that's
slowly crushing me to bits.  I'd rather not talk of
General Bent."

"Is it as bad as that?" she murmured, awe-stricken.

"Yes—they've pushed me to the wall.  I'm
still fighting, but unless I compromise or sell the
mine——" he stopped and straightened his great
frame.  "Camilla, don't let's talk of this.  I know
you're tired.  I won't stay long.  Just tell me what
you mean about going back to Abilene."

She clasped her hands nervously, glad of the chance
to postpone her revelation, which seemed to grow
more difficult with each moment.

"I can't stand the life I'm living, Jeff.  I can't
take any more from you.  I've done it all spring
because you wanted me to, but I can't live a lie
any longer.  Those rooms, that luxury, the servants,
the people about me, they oppressed me and bore
me to the earth.  I have no right to them—still
less now that things are going badly with you.
You wanted me to keep the place we'd made—to
make a larger place for your name in New York.
I hope I've made it, but it has cost me something.
I'm sick of ambition, of the soulless striving, the
emptiness of it all.  I can't do it any longer.  I
must go somewhere where I can be myself, where
I don't have to knuckle to people I despise, where
I don't have to climb, climb, climb—my ears deaf
to the sneers and the envy of the scandal-mongers,
and open only for the flattery which soothes my
self-esteem but not—no, nothing can soothe the ache
at the heart."

"What has happened, Camilla?  I understood
you had made many new friends."

"Yes, some new friends—also, some new enemies.
But that hasn't bothered me.  It's the lying I
had to do—about you—the excuses I have had
to make for being alone, the dates I have set for
your return, lies—all lies—when I knew you were
not going to return, that you had deserted me and
left me only your money as a bribe.  I couldn't
do it any longer.  I wrote you all this.  You
thought I didn't mean what I said—because I
had your money—your merciless money, to gratify
my pride in my pretty body.  It has come to the
point where your money is an insult—as much of
an insult as the dishonor you put on me."

"Dishonor?  I can't have you associate that name
with Mrs. Cheyne," he blurted forth.

She smiled and then gave a hard, dry, little
unmirthful laugh.

"Oh, you mistake my meaning.  I wasn't thinking
of Mrs. Cheyne.  I was selfish enough to be
still thinking of myself."

"I don't understand."

She got up and walked to the window, leaning
her face against the pane to soothe with its coolness
the heat of her brow.  "I was thinking of my own
dishonor—not yours—I have nothing to do with
yours.  To be doubted as you have doubted
me—to know that you could believe me
capable of dishonoring you—that is dishonor
enough."

"You mustn't forget that you gave me cause,"
he said hoarsely.  "What kind of a man do you
think I am?  You married me for a whim—because
another man wouldn't have you.  I forgave you
that because I was willing to take you at any price.
That was my fault as much as yours.  It was what
came after——"

He came up behind her, his voice trembling but
suppressed.

"Do you think I'm the kind of man to tolerate
the things between you and Cort Bent?  I was a
fool once.  I believed in you—I thought no matter
how little love you had in your heart for me that
you'd have enough respect for yourself.  Do you
think I could stand knowing that my servants
had seen you in his arms?"

She flashed around at him, breathless, paler than
ever, clutching at the window-sill behind her for
support.  "Who—who told you this?"

"Greer—my valet at the hotel," he snarled,
"when I discharged him and came here."

"He said——?"

Jeff caught her by the elbows—brutally—and
held her so that he could look into her eyes.

"It's true—isn't it?  Answer me!"

She gazed at him wide-eyed, and now for the
first time he saw how ill she looked.  Even at that
moment he was sure that pity and love and a
desire for possession were still the feelings that
dominated him.  She could not stand the gaze
of his eyes.  They seemed to burn through her,
so she lowered her head.

"Yes," she admitted brokenly, "it's true—I
was in his arms."

A sound came from his throat—a guttural sound
half-choked in the utterance, as he dropped her,
turned violently and in a stride was at the door.
But as the key turned in the lock, she started
forward and clutched him by the sleeve.

"Wait," she whispered piteously.  "You must.
You can't go now.  You've got to know everything."

"I think I've had enough.  I'm going."  He
turned the knob and opened the door, but she
leaned against it and pushed it shut.

"You've got to listen.  I have some rights
still—the right every woman has to defend her name."

"If she can," he sneered.

"I can—I will.  Will you listen?"  He shrugged
his shoulders and walked past her to the window.
Camilla faced him, beginning slowly, breathlessly.
"It was when we first came to New York that it
began—that day when you and your—you
and General Bent came in from downtown.
Cortland was there—I—I thought I had forgotten
him.  I was happy with you.  I was beginning
to believe that, after all, we hadn't made a mistake.
But you were away all day and I was lonely.  The
city was so vast, so unfriendly.  I had no right
to be lonely but I was.  I was bewildered by all
the magnificence and homesick for Mesa City.
That day Cort Bent came in I had a fit of the blues.
He brought back all the old story—and told me
how you stole the mine."

Jeff laughed aloud.  "So he told you that—did
he?  For sympathy?" he sneered.

"It revolted me," she persisted.  "It revolts
me still.  I was new to modern business methods
then.  I can't like them now, but I've learned to
keep silent.  He asked me to forgive him the past,
and I did.  The spell of romance was over me still.
He told me that he loved me more than ever and
that he would not give me up.  I thought—I
thought I loved him, too——"

"You *thought*!  You *knew*!" he said immoderately.
"You've always loved him."

"No, no.  It wasn't that," she pleaded.  "It
wasn't love, Jeff.  I learned that soon enough.
It was only pity——"

"And where was your pity for me?"

"Don't, Jeff—let me finish.  Whatever my
feelings for you then, whatever they are now, I
was true to you in word and deed."

"When you were in his arms?"  He laughed harshly.

"He took me in his arms.  He tried to kiss me
on the lips, but I would not let him.  I've never let
him.  I broke away and threatened to ring if he
followed me—and then—and then you came in.
That's all, Jeff—all—and it's the truth."  She
faced him bravely, her eyes seeking his.  He glared
at her madly, but could not stare her down.  It
was one of those tragic moments when all the future
hangs on the flicker of an eyelash.  Jeff's gaze fell
first.

"I would have come back here," she went on.
"I asked you to leave New York with me.  You
wouldn't go.  Instead of that you threw us together
more and more.  Why, I don't know, unless it
was because you did not care."

"I did care," he muttered.

"You did not care," she insisted.  "You had
met Rita Cheyne then——"

"It was because *she* saw what I did," he asserted.
"It was because——"

"Don't explain," she said.  "I'm not asking *you*
to explain or to exonerate her.  It's too late for that.
But I cannot bear to have you think such dreadful
things about me, cruel things, things that
hurt—hurt me here——"

She put her hand to her breast and swayed.
He sprang to her side and caught her in his arms
as she fell, lifting her like a child and carrying her
to the bed, terror-stricken at the coldness of her
hands and face.  He rang the bell, and then with
bungling fingers loosened her collar and dress,
whimpering the while like a child.  "Camilla, my
girl, don't look so white.  Open your eyes.  I
believe you, dearie; I've always believed you.  Look
at me, Camilla.  I know you're straight.  I didn't
mean it.  I was cruel to you.  I wouldn't hurt you
for the world.  I love you.  You're *my* girl—*my*
girl."

There was a commotion at the door of the
adjoining room, which suddenly flew open, and a
figure in a trailing silk kimono glided in, pushed
him aside abruptly, and put a silver brandy flask
to Camilla's lips.  It was Mrs. Cheyne.

"I was next door," she explained jerkily.  "I
heard.  I couldn't help it.  The partitions are so
thin."  And then, with sudden authority: "Don't
stand there like a fool.  Bring some
water—quickly," and when he had obeyed: "Now bathe
her temples and give her brandy.  She'll be all
right in a minute.  When I go, get a light.  But
she mustn't see me here."  And, before he was
even aware of it, she had vanished like a wraith.

The housemaid brought a lamp, put it on the
table, and hovered anxiously in the background,
but Camilla's eyes had opened.

"Mrs. Wray is sick," Jeff began.

But Camilla had already drawn herself up on
one elbow and gently pushed him away.

"I—I'm all right now.  I can't imagine what
made me feel so queerly.  I've never been—I've
never fainted before."

"A little more brandy?"

"No, not now.  Who—?  Wasn't there some
one else in here?  I thought—I saw some one in
pink—and smelled a perfume.  I must have been
dreaming."

"Lie back on the pillow and rest, Camilla, dear.
You're played out.  The doctor will be here in a
minute."

"I don't want a doctor.  I'm all right."  With
an effort she straightened and sat on the side of the
bed.  "I remember—I was telling you——"

"Don't, Camilla.  I don't want to hear.  I believe
you.  It's all a mistake."  He bent over her
and tried to take her in his arms.

But she held up her hand and gently restrained
him.  "No—no," she said shaking her head.
"Don't try to soothe me.  That doesn't mean
anything.  I know.  Shadows like these are not brushed
away so quickly.  Sit there, Jeff, by the window and
listen.  There's something else I must tell you—I
should have told you at once.  It's what I
came here for, but I didn't seem to have the courage."

"No, not to-night."

"I must—it won't keep.  You must listen."  Her
eyes pleaded, and so he sank into the rocking
chair, leaning forward eagerly.  She took up the
handbag beside her on the table and fumbled
tremblingly at the lock.

"It's something which concerns General Bent and
you—no, not business, Jeff—something
personal—something dreadfully personal—which has
nothing whatever to do with your business relations,
and yet something which seems to make your hatred
of each other all the more terrible.  It—it seems
very hard for me to tell you, because it's something
you have never liked to speak about—something
that has always made you very unhappy."

"Why, what do you mean, Camilla?" he asked.

"You must let me tell you in my own way, because
it will be hard for you to realize.  I must
show you that there is no mistake—no chance of a
mistake, Jeff.  Two weeks ago at the hotel in New
York I was reading the letters in the old tin box
and looking at the photographs.  They were in
the drawer of your desk.  I've never spoken of
them to you or looked at them since we were
married—but you were not there to see them and—I—I
didn't think you'd mind.  I had them on your
desk when Mrs. Rumsen came in.  She saw the
photograph of your father.  She—she had one
just like it in her album at home——"

"She knew him, then?" eagerly.

"Yes.  I've brought both photographs with me."  She
took them out of the handbag with trembling
hands and gave them to him.

He got up, took them to the light and held them
side by side.  "Yes, yes," he muttered, "they
are the same—the very same.  There's no doubt
about that."  And then, in a suppressed voice, "You
know who he is?"

"Yes, Jeff.  Mrs. Rumsen and I know—no
one else—not a soul else.  It's your secret.  We
couldn't tell.  No one can or will but you."  Her
voice had sunk almost to a whisper.  "It's—it's
the General—Jeff—General Bent."

Outwardly Jeff gave no sign of unusual
disturbance—a slight tightening of his thumbs upon
the pictures, a slight bending of the head that his
eyes might be surer of their vision.  But to Camilla,
who was watching him timidly, he seemed to grow
compact, his big frame to shrink into itself and his
eyes to glow with a strange, unfamiliar fire.

"General—Bent—General—Bent," he repeated
the words huskily, as if they were a formula
which he was trying to commit to memory.  "It
can't be true?"

"Yes, Jeff, it's true.  Mrs. Rumsen identified
the letters.  There's no doubt—none."

"I can't believe—why, I'd have *felt* it—Camilla.
I've always said I'd know him if I saw him."

"You didn't—but have you thought?  You
look like him, Jeff.  You *look* like him."

"Yes—it's strange I didn't think of that."  And
then suddenly, "Does *he* know?"

"No—he won't unless you tell him."

He looked up at her with dumb, uncomprehending
eyes and sank in his chair again, still grasping the
photographs.

"I must think," he groaned, "I've got to think—what
to do.  I've hated him so—all these long
years.  I hate him now—not because he's
my—my father—but because—he's himself."

"Stop, Jeff, you mustn't—you mustn't speak so."

"It's true," raising his bloodshot eyes to hers.
"Why should I care?  Did *he* care for the atom he's
put into the world to float about without a name
to land on any dung-hill?  I'll pay him back for
that, by God!  I'm not his son.  The only thing
I want of his blood is his cruelty.  I'll take that and
use it when I can—on him and his."

"You mustn't, Jeff.  It's horrible.  I can't stand
hearing this."

At the touch of her hand he stopped, got up and
paced the length of the room and back again in
grim silence, his lips working, while she watched
him, fearful of another outburst.

"I must think this thing out, Camilla—by
myself.  I don't know what I'll do."  And then
suddenly, "Where is he now?" he asked harshly.

"In Denver—at the Brown Palace Hotel.  They
came West before I did with the Janneys, Gretchen,
and Mrs. Rumsen.  They came in a private car."

"To be in at my finish," he muttered bitterly.
"I can't seem to think, Camilla.  It's all so
monstrous—it staggers me."

He stopped pacing the floor and looked at her,
suddenly realizing how ill she had been, and contrite
and self-accusing he fell on his knees at her feet and
put his arms around her.

"Camilla!  I shouldn't have let you tell me all
this to-night.  You were not strong enough.  I've
been brutal to you—to forget what you were
suffering.  You must sleep.  My heart has been
aching for you all these long months.  I'll take
care of you and make you strong and well again.
You're not going back to Abilene, Camilla."

Slowly she disengaged her hands.

"You must go now, Jeff.  I—I am tired.  But
all I need is rest.  I couldn't have slept until I told
you.  It has preyed on me like a poison.  I can't
influence you, though.  You must use your own
judgment as to what you'll do, but I pray you'll
do nothing rash."

"You must not go back to Abilene.  There's
much to be explained, Camilla—you must promise
not to go away!  I want to speak to you about
Rita Cheyne."

She rose from her seat on the bed with a kind of
wistful dignity.

"I can't promise anything, Jeff.  Go, please.  I
want to be alone."

He looked at her a moment, pleading, and then
turned without a word and went out.  She heard
his heavy steps go down the noisy hall, heard them
again on the porch below and on the boardwalk
through the village until they were engulfed in the
gloom of the night—Jeff's night of anguish, battle,
and temptation.





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.. _`THE INTRUDER`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE INTRUDER

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Meanwhile, in Parlor A, next door, a
lady in a pink kimono, who seemed
unusually diminutive and childish in her
low-heeled bedroom slippers, pottered about
uneasily, walking from window to window, jerking
at the shades to peer out of doors, and then pulling
the shades noisily down again; opening the hall
door, looking down the corridor, walking out a
few steps and then coming rapidly back again, to
light a cigarette which she almost immediately
put out and threw into the stove; coughing,
dropping things—and then standing tense and alert
to listen, acting altogether in a surprising and
unusual manner.  But the sound of voices in the
adjoining room persevered, now loud—now less
loud, but always perfectly audible through the thin,
paper-like partition.  At last, as though in sudden
desperation, without removing her clothes, or even
her slippers, she crawled quickly into the bed and
pulled the covers and pillow over her head, lying
still as a mouse, but tense and alert in spite of
herself and—in spite of herself—listening.  She
emerged again in a while, half smothered, like a
diver coming to the surface, listening again, and
then with an exclamation quickly got out of bed,
her fingers at her ears, to open the hall door presently
and flee down the corridor.

From her vantage point—in an empty room—she
heard Jeff's rapid footsteps go past, and only
when she heard them no longer did she go back to
Parlor A.  She closed the outer door and locked it,
sat down in an armchair, leaning forward, her
head in her hands, staring at a pink rose in the ornate
carpet, deep in thought.  In the room next door all
was quiet again.  Once she thought she heard the
sound of a sob, but she could not be sure of it, and
after a while the light which had shone through
the wide crack under the door disappeared.  For
a long time she sat there, immovable except for the
slight, quick tapping of one small foot upon the
floor.

At last she rose with an air of resolution and
touched the bell.  To the clerk, who answered it
in person, she asked for telegraph blanks and a
messenger.  He looked at his watch.

"The telegraph office is closed."

"Well, it will have to be opened.  This is a
matter which can't wait until morning.  The
operator must be found."

"We *might* get a message through."  He looked
at the bill she had put in his hand.  "Yes, I'm
sure we can."

"And you might send me up some tea and toast."  She
shut the door, went to her trunk, took out her
writing pad, put it on the table, turned up the wick
of the lamp, and began writing.  She finished a
letter and sealed it carefully.  When the telegraph
blanks came she wrote two rather lengthy messages.
One of the telegrams was addressed to the cashier
of the Tenth National Bank of Denver—the other
telegram and the letter were addressed to Lawrence
Berkely at the Brown Palace Hotel in the same city.
When she had given the messenger his instructions,
she sank in her chair again with a sigh, and, with a
tea cup in one hand and a piece of buttered toast
in the other, sat facing the door into Parlor B.
Her face wore a curious expression, partly
mischievous, partly solemn, but there was at times a
momentary trace of trouble in it, too, and when the
tea cup was set aside she stretched her arms wearily
and then brought them down, lacing her fingers
behind her neck, putting her head back and closing
her eyes as though in utter, soul-racking weariness.
Suddenly she rose, passing the back of one wrist
abruptly across her brows, and prepared to go to bed.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



Camilla awoke late and ordered breakfast in her
room.  It was not bodily fatigue which she felt now.
That seemed to have passed.  It was mental inertia,
which, like muscular stiffness, follows the carrying
of too heavy a burden.  A part of her burden she
still carried, and even the brightness of the Colorado
sun, which dappled the tinsel wall paper beside her,
failed to rekindle the embers of old delights.  From
one of her windows she could see the fine sweep of
the Saguache range as it extended its great
half-moon toward the northern end of the valley, where
it joined the main ridge of the Continental Divide;
from the other window the roofs of the town below
her, Mulrennan's, the schoolhouse, and Jeff's
"Watch Us Grow" sign, now dwarfed by the brick
office building which had risen behind it.  It seemed
a hundred years since she had lived in Mesa City,
and to her eyes, accustomed to elegant distances,
the town seemed to have grown suddenly smaller,
more ugly, garish, and squalid.  And yet it was
here that she had lived for five years—five long
years of youth and hope and boundless ambition.
In those days the place had oppressed her with its
emptiness, and she had suffered for the lack of
opportunity to live her life in accordance with the dreams
of her school-days; but to-day, when she seemed to
have neither hope nor further ambition, she knew
that the early days were days of real happiness.
What did it matter if it had been the bliss of ignorance,
since she was now aware of the folly of wisdom?
She could never be happy anywhere now—not even
here.  She lay back on her pillows and closed her
eyes, but even then the vision of Rita Cheyne
intruded—a vision of Jeff and Rita Cheyne riding
together over the mountain trails.

She was indeed unpleasantly surprised when, a
few moments later, there was a knock upon the
door at the foot of her bed; and when she had put
on a dressing gown the door opened suddenly, and
there stood Rita Cheyne herself, smiling confidently
and asking admittance.

Camilla was perturbed—so much so, in fact,
that no words occurred to her.  The door had opened
outward toward Rita Cheyne, who held its knob.
It was, therefore, obviously impossible for Camilla
to close it without Mrs. Cheyne's assistance.  This,
it seemed, the visitor had no intention of giving,
for she came forward on the door-sill and held out
her hand.

"Mrs. Wray," she said gently, "I want to come
in and talk to you.  May I?"

"This is—rather surprising," Camilla began.

"Yes," she admitted, "it is.  Perhaps I'm a little
surprised, too.  I—I wanted to talk to you.  There
are some things—important things——"

By this time Camilla had managed to collect
her scattered resources.  "I'm not sure," she said
coolly, "that our friendship has ever been intimate
enough to warrant——"

Rita put one hand up before her.  "Don't, Mrs. Wray!
It hasn't.  But you'll understand in a moment,
if you'll let me come in and talk to you."

Camilla drew her laces around her throat and with
a shrug stood aside.  "I hope you'll be brief," she
said coldly.  "Will you sit down?"

But Mrs. Cheyne had already sat in a chair with
her back to one of the windows, where her face
was partially obscured by the shadows of her
hair.  She pulled her kimono about her figure,
clasped her fingers over her knees, and leaned
forward, eagerly examining her companion, who had
seated herself uneasily upon the side of the bed.
"You *are* handsome!" she said candidly, as if
settling a point in her own mind which had long
been debatable.  "I don't think I ever saw you
handsomer than you are at the present moment.
Trouble becomes you, it gives a meaning to the
shadows of your face which they never had before."

Camilla started up angrily.  "Did you come here
to comment upon my appearance?"

"No," said Rita suavely.  "I can't help it—that's
all.  Did you know that you have been the
means of destroying one of my most treasured
ideals?  You have, you know.  I've always scoffed
at personal beauty—now I remain to pray.  It's
a definite living force—like politics—or like
religion."

"Really, Mrs. Cheyne——!"

"Please let me talk—you would if you only knew
what I'm going to say.  My remarks may seem
irrelevant, but they're not.  They're a confession of
weakness on my part—an acknowledgment of
strength on yours.  You never liked me from the
first, and I don't think I really was very fond of
you.  We seemed to have been run in different
moulds.  There's no reason why we shouldn't have
got along because—well, you know I'm not half
bad when one really knows me; and you!—you
have everything that most people like—you're
beautiful, cultured, clever and—and quite human."

Camilla made a gesture of impatience, but Rita
went on imperturbably.  "You're handsome, gentle
and human—but you—you're a dreadful fool!"

And then, with a laugh, "Please sit down and
don't look so tragic.  It's true, dear, perfectly
true, and you'll be quite sure of it in a moment."

Anger seemed so futile, Camilla was reduced to
a smile of contempt.  "I'm sure I can't be anything
but flattered at your opinions, Mrs. Cheyne."  But,
in spite of herself, she was conscious of a mild
curiosity as to whither this remarkable conversation
was leading.

"Thanks," said Rita with mock humility.
"There's only one thing in the world more blind
than hatred, and that's love.  Because you think
you hate me, you'd be willing to let slip forever
your only chance of happiness in this world."

"I don't hate you," said Camilla icily, "and
luckily my happiness is not in any way dependent
on what you may say or do."

"Oh, yes, it is," said Rita quickly.  "I'm going
to prevent you from making a mistake.  You've
already made too many of them.  You're planning
to go away to Kansas when your husband positively
adores the very ground you walk on."

Having shot her bolt, like the skillful archer she
put her head on one side and eagerly watched its
flight.  Camilla started up, one hand on the
bed-post, her color vanishing.

"You—you heard?"

"I—I know."

"*He* told you."

"Who?  Jeff?"  She leaned back in her chair
and laughed up at the ceiling.  "Well, hardly.
I don't mind people telling me they adore the ground
*I* walk on, but——"

"How did you know?"  Camilla glanced toward
the door and into Mrs. Cheyne's room, a new
expression of dismay coming into her eyes.  "You
heard what passed in here—last night?"

"Yes—something—I couldn't help it."

"How could you—have listened?" Camilla gasped.

"I tried not to—I tried to make you stop—by
dropping things and making a noise, but I
couldn't.  You didn't or wouldn't hear—either
of you.  Finally I had to go out of the room."  She
rose with a sudden impulse of sympathy and
put her hand on Camilla's shoulder.

"Oh, don't think everything bad about me!
Can't you understand?  Won't you realize that
at this moment I'm the best friend you have in the
world?  Even if you don't admit that, try to believe
that what I say to you is true.  Why should I risk
a rebuff in coming in here to you if it wasn't with
a motive more important than any hurt you
can do to me?  What I say to you is true.
Your husband loves you.  He's mad about you.
Don't you understand?"  Camilla lowered her
eyes, one of her hands fingering at the bed-cover,
suddenly aware of the friendly pat on her shoulder.
At last she slowly raised her head and found Rita
Cheyne's eyes with the searching, intrusive look
that one woman has for another.

"Why should *you* tell me this?" she asked.  Mrs. Cheyne
turned aside with a light laugh.

"Why *shouldn't* I?  Is happiness so easily to be
had in this world that I'd refuse it—to a friend if
it was in my power to give?  I can't see you throwing
it away for a foolish whim.  That's what it is—a
whim.  You've got to stay with Jeff.  What
right have you to go?  What has he done to deserve
it?  I flirted with him.  I acknowledge it.  What
is that?  I flirt with every man I like.  It's my way
of amusing myself."  She straightened, and, with
a whimsical smile which had in it a touch of effrontery,
"The fact that he still loves you after that,
my dear," she said, "is the surest proof of his devotion."

Camilla looked away—out of the window toward
the "Watch Us Grow" sign, the symbol of Jeff's
ambition, and her eyes softened.  She got up and
walked to the window which faced the mountains.

"If I could only believe you—if I only could,"
she said, and then, turning suddenly, "Why did you
try to make Jeff fall in love with you?"

Rita shrugged.  "Simply because—because it
was impossible.  I'm so tired of doing easy things.
I've always done everything I wanted to, and it
bored me.  I owe your husband a debt.  I thought
all men were the same.  Do you really think there
are any more like Jeff?"

Camilla watched her narrowly, probing shrewdly
below the surface for traces of the vein of feeling
she had shown a moment before.  What she
discovered was little, but that little seemed to satisfy
her, for, after a pause, in which she twisted the
window cord and then untwisted it again, she came
forward slowly, took Rita by both hands and looked
deep into her eyes.

"Why did you come out here?"

It was no time for equivocation.  Camilla's eyes
burned steadily, oh, so steadily.  But Rita did not
flinch.

"I thought Jeff was lonely.  I thought he needed
some one, and so I came out in the Bents' private
car as far as Denver.  I left them there and came on
alone.  I wanted to help him—I'm trying to
help him still—with my sympathy, my money—and—and
such influence as I can use to make his
wife realize her duty to him and her duty to herself."

It was an explanation which somehow did not seem
to explain, and yet curiously enough it satisfied
Camilla.  If it was not the whole truth, there was
enough of it that was nothing but the truth.  She
felt that it would not have been fair to ask for
more.  Rita was not slow to follow up this advantage.
She gave a quick sigh, then took Camilla by
both shoulders.  "You mustn't go away to Kansas,
I tell you.  You've never loved anybody but Jeff.
Cortland knows it, and I know it.  I've known it
all the while.  A woman has a way of learning these
things.  If you leave him now there's no telling
what may happen.  He needs you.  He can't get
on without you.  They're trying to crush the life
out of him in this soulless war for the smelter,
and they may succeed.  He's pushed to the limit of
his resourcefulness and his endurance.  Flesh and
blood can't stand that strain long.  He needs all his
friends now and every help, moral and physical,
that they can give him.  There's no one else who
can take your place now.  No one to stand at his
side and take the bad with the good.  You've had
your half of his success—now you must take your
half of his failure.  You're his wife, Camilla!  Do
you understand that?  His wife!"

A sob welled up in Camilla's throat and took her
unawares.  She bent her head to hide it—and then
gave way and fell on the bed in a passion of tears.

Rita watched her for a moment with a smile, for
she knew that the tears were tears of happiness,
then went over and put her arms around Camilla's
shoulders, murmuring gently:

"You're not to blame, Camilla—not altogether—and
it's not too late to begin again.  He needs
you now as he has never needed you before.  It's
your opportunity.  I hope you see it."

"I do, I do," came faintly from the coverlid.

"You must see him at once.  Do you understand?
Shall I send for him?"

"Yes, soon."  Camilla sat up and smiled through
her tears, drew Rita down alongside of her, put
her arm around her and kissed her on the cheek.

"I understand you now.  I'm sorry—for many
things.  I want to know you better, dear.  May I?"

"Yes," said Rita calmly, "if you can.  Perhaps
then you might explain me to myself.  But I'm
going to New York again soon—something tells
me you are to stay here."

"I will stay here now," said Camilla proudly,
"if Jeff wants me.  Are you sure—sure—he——"

Rita held her off at arm's length,
quizzically—tantalizing her purposely.

"No, silly.  He loves me, of course—that's
why I'm presenting him to you."  Then she leaned
forward, kissed her on the cheek, and rose quickly.

"It's pretty late.  I must catch the eleven o'clock
train.  I have a lot to do.  I'm going into my own
room."

There was a knock at the outer door.  Camilla
answered it and received a note from the clerk.

"From Mr. Wray's office.  There's no answer."

She opened it hurriedly, while Rita watched.

.. vspace:: 2

"Dear Camilla" (it ran): "I'm leaving suddenly
by the early train for Denver on a business
matter which to me means either life or death.
For the love of God don't leave me now.  Wait
until I return.  I'm going to the Brown Palace Hotel
and will write you from there.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: left

"JEFF."

.. vspace:: 2

She read through the hurried scrawl twice and
then silently handed it to her companion.

"You must follow, Camilla—at once—with
me," said Mrs. Cheyne.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`GRETCHEN DECIDES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   GRETCHEN DECIDES

.. vspace:: 2

Lawrence Berkely was doing scout
duty in the neighborhood of the seat of
war, keeping closely in touch with Wray
by wire code.  Although he had a room at the
Brown Palace Hotel, he went elsewhere for his meals,
and since the arrival of General Bent's party he
had eluded the detection of Cornelius Bent, Curtis
Janney, or Cortland.  He had been advised by a
brief wire from Gretchen Janney of the date of
her departure from New York and had noted the
arrival of his business enemies with mingled feelings.
In response to his note to her room Gretchen had
stolen away and met him quietly in one of the hotel
parlors, where, unknown to Curtis Janney, they
had renewed their vows of eternal fidelity.

Gretchen was, of course, familiar with Larry's
position as a business rival of her father's pet
company, and she had thought it best, since Larry's
departure from New York, to keep their engagement
a secret from her parents.  She had heard from him
regularly, and distance, it seemed, had made no
difference in the nature of her feelings for him, but
she knew from her father's disappointment at
Cortland Bent's defection that the time to take
her parents into her confidence had not yet arrived.

It had not occurred to Curtis Janney to think
of Lawrence Berkely's attentions seriously, but
Gretchen knew that her mother, at least, had
breathed a sigh of relief when Larry had left New
York.  Mrs. Janney had questioned her daughter
anxiously, but Gretchen had answered in riddles,
and in the end had succeeded in convincing her
that marriage was the last thing in the world she
was thinking of.  Gretchen was a little afraid of
her father.  Once or twice he had expressed himself
rather freely as to the kind of man he expected his
daughter to marry, from which it was clear that his
list of eligibles did not include Lawrence Berkely.
She had written all of this tearfully to Larry, so
that when she reached Denver he decided that
matters had reached a crisis which demanded some
sort of an understanding with Janney père.  The
clandestine meetings, which rather appealed to
Gretchen's sense of the romantic, made Larry
unhappy.  He had nothing to be ashamed of and
saw no reason why he had to court the woman he
loved under cover of darkness.  So he made up his
mind to settle the thing in his own way.

In this crisis it had occurred to Gretchen to
enlist Mrs. Cheyne's services in their behalf, for
Rita had always been a favorite of her father's;
but an evening or two after her arrival in Denver
that lady had mysteriously disappeared from the
hotel, only leaving word that she had gone to visit
friends in the neighborhood and would advise General
Bent of her future plans.  No one but Larry, with
whom she had been talking, had for a moment
suspected that the "friends" in the neighborhood were
only Jeff, and, though she had not bound Larry to
secrecy, both duty and discretion demanded his silence.

Larry's position was difficult, but when he
discovered that nothing was to be gained by keeping
his movements hidden from Cornelius Bent he took
the bull by the horns and boldly sent up his card
to Curtis Janney's suite.  He was so full of his
own affairs that Mr. Janney's possible misconception
of the object of his visit had not occurred to
him.  He was welcomed cordially—so jovially,
in fact, that for a moment he was taken off his guard.

"Well, Berkely, by George! glad to see you.
Rather a surprise to find us all out here invading
your own country, eh?"

Larry sat rather soberly, refused a cigar, and
expressed well-bred surprise.

"I can't imagine anybody wanting to leave
Braebank in April," he said.

"Well, I didn't want to, Berkely—I'm doing
a little scientific farming this summer—but we
had to come out on this smelter business—the
General and I——"  He stopped and puffed rapidly
at his cigar.  "It's too bad—really—I'm sorry,
sorry, but I think Wray made a mistake.  I like Wray,
Berkely.  He's got stuff in him, but he overleaped
himself in this smelter business.  It's a pity he
thought he had to fight us, but you've got to admit
we gave him every chance."

"I didn't come to see you about the smelter
business, Mr. Janney," said Berkely rather quietly,
"but on a matter of my own—a personal—a
private matter."

Janney's face grew grave.

"A private matter?"

"Yes, sir."  Larry closed his lips firmly for a
moment, and then came to the point without further
words.  "Mr. Janney, I suppose I should have
spoken to you before I left New York.  Our business
relations seemed to make it difficult.  But the very
fact that we can't be friends in business makes it
necessary for me, at least, to be honest with you in
this other matter."

"What on earth are you driving at?"

"I want to marry your daughter, sir, that's all,"
said Larry with the suddenness of desperation.

"Gretchen?  My daughter?" Janney said, explosively.
He rose, with one hand on the back of
his chair, and glared at Larry as though he doubted
his sanity.  "You want to marry Gretchen?"  Then
he laughed—and Larry discovered in that
laugh wherein Janney and General Bent had points
of contact.  Janney took three long strides to the
window, then wheeled suddenly.  "You must be
crazy.  My daughter—marry *you*?"

Larry had risen and met Janney's impertinent
scrutiny with some dignity.

"Yes, sir; I'm not aware of anything in my family,
my connections, my prospects, or my character
which can be found objectionable.  Your daughter
cares for me——"

"Why, you insolent young fortune-hunter!"

"Wait a moment!" and Larry's voice dominated.
"You'll speak to me as one gentleman does to
another—or you'll not speak to me at all."  He took
up his hat from the table, and then, more evenly, "I
take it, you refuse your consent?"

By this time Curtis Janney's usual poise had
completely deserted him.

"Refuse—my consent?  Well, rather!"

He went to the door through which Berkely had
entered.  But instead of opening the door Janney
turned and put his back to it.

"See here, young man, you don't like my language.
Perhaps you'll like it less when I'm through
talking.  Colorado seems to breed big ambitions.
I know nothing of your family and care less.  But I do
know something of your prospects.  Inside of
forty-eight hours you won't have prospects of any kind.
You're going to be blotted out.  Do you understand?
I've made other plans for my daughter—and I'm
not in the mood to listen to any silly romantic
nonsense from her or any far-sighted propositions
from you.  Your proposal is impudent sir, d—d
impudent—the proposition of a desperate man
who, failing to win by fair means——"

"Will you open the door, sir?" said Larry, now
white with rage.  "If not, I'll find means to open
it myself."  He took a step forward, and the two
men glared into each other's eyes not a pace apart.
There was no mistaking Larry's determination, and
Mr. Janney's surprise was manifest.  This was
not the manner of the fortune-hunters he had met.
Somewhat uncertainly he stood aside, and Berkely
put his hand on the door-knob.

"I did you an honor in consulting you, sir.  It's
a pity you couldn't appreciate it.  In the future
I'll act on my own initiative.  Good afternoon."

And, before the older man had even realized what
the words meant, Larry had opened the door and
was gone.  He hurried down the corridor, still
trembling at the meaning of Janney's insults, which
had touched his Southern pride.  For Gretchen's
sake it would have been better if he could have kept
himself under control, and he realized that he had
lost every chance of getting Curtis Janney's
permission and approval.  But that did not daunt
him.  He had acquitted his mind of a responsibility,
and he was glad that in the future there could be
no misunderstanding.  If he could not marry
Gretchen with the approval of her family, he would
marry her without it.

Halfway up the block above the hotel on Seventeenth
Street Larry stopped, able for the first time
to review more calmly the incidents of the last half
hour.  What was it Curtis Janney had said about
his prospects?  In forty-eight hours he would be
wiped off the earth.  That meant Jeff, too.  He had
a sudden guilty sense of shock, that in his selfish
absorption in his own affairs he had for the moment
forgotten Jeff and the business of the Company.
Forty-eight hours!  That was important information—and
Janney had let it slip in anger—there
was no doubt about that.  What did it mean?
That all the Amalgamated Company's wires were
laid, and the only thing left was to touch the button
which would blow the Wray interests to pieces?

It looked that way, and yet Larry still hoped.
The rails of the Saguache Short Line would be joined
to those of the D. & C. to-morrow.  Much
depended on Symonds.  Larry hurried over to the
offices of the Denver and California and emerged
later with a look of satisfaction.  Symonds was still
General Manager and was still loyal.  Within
thirty-six hours, at his orders, a locomotive and one
passenger car from the D. & C. yards at Pueblo
would carry Clinton, Symonds, Mulrennan, Judge
Weigel, and other stockholders of the Development
Company from Pueblo over the line to Saguache,
establishing their connection at Pueblo in
accordance with Jeff's agreements with the road.  It
would take some queer construction of the law
for Jeff's enemies to get around that.  Larry knew
that it meant a long fight, one which lack of money
might lose in the end, but he assured himself that
he could establish a nice legal point which would
be worth fighting for.  The calling of Jeff's loans
by the banks was a more dangerous matter.  Larry
had hoped that this could have been arranged, but
only a small amount of the money had been
forthcoming, and where Jeff was going to raise the rest
of it Providence only knew!

When Larry reached his room at the hotel he
found a brief note from Gretchen:

.. vspace:: 2

"I have heard about everything.  I shall never
speak to father again.  You must marry me at once,
Larry.  I can't stand the suspense any longer.
Mother is here with me, but I'm going to get away
somehow.  Meet me at the Shirley at ten o'clock."

.. vspace:: 2

Larry smiled and kissed the penciled scrawl
rapturously.  "God bless you, I'll do it—Gretchen,
dear," he said to himself.

That was a busy evening for Larry.  It was six
o'clock when he wrote a line to Gretchen and rang
for a page, to whom he gave careful instructions—also,
some money.  Then he sat at his desk and with
his code sent a long wire to Jeff.  At half-past six
he was dressing carefully in the intervals between
packing a suit case and 'phoning to a legal friend of
his, Dick Wetherall, about a minister and a license.
At seven-thirty he dined with Wetherall.  At eight
he received Rita Cheyne's mysterious wire.  At
nine he found the cashier of the Tenth National
Bank at his home and planned for the taking up
of the Development Company's notes and arranging
to deposit Mrs. Cheyne's money to Jeff Wray's
account on the following morning.  At ten he met
Gretchen at the Shirley Hotel, and, at half-past ten,
had married her.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



In response to Larry's first telegram and speeding
eastward on the early train, Jeff Wray read all this
astonishing news in the sheaf of telegrams handed
him at the station by Ike Matthews.  His brow
lifted, and the hard lines at his mouth relaxed in
a smile.  Good old Larry!  He tried to conjure a
vision of Curtis Janney's face as he heard the news.
Larry was carrying the war into the enemy's camp
with a vengeance.

It took Jeff longer to decipher the second telegram:

.. vspace:: 2

"Mrs. Cheyne has arranged with her Denver
agents—deposit eight hundred thousand dollars your
credit Tenth National to-morrow morning.  Await
instructions."

.. vspace:: 2

It seemed incredible.  When had Rita done this?
The grim lines that his long night's vigil had seared
at the corners of his mouth grew deeper, but his
eyes glowed with a sombre fire.  There was still an
even chance to win—for Larry was holding the
fort awaiting reinforcements, and Rita Cheyne had
restored the break in Jeff's line of communication.
The astonishing information in Larry's last wire
seemed to clear his mind of the doubts which had
assailed it all night long.  The possibility of success
now gave his own affairs a different complexion.
He could never have told the truth to General Bent
(Jeff couldn't think of him as a father) unless he
won the fight for the independence of the Saguache
Smelter.  Jeff was no man to come cringing in
the hour of failure at the feet of his enemy, asking
immunity on the strength of such a relationship
as that which existed between them.  It had been
clear to Jeff all night long that if he lost his fight
he could never face General Bent with the truth.
That was the real bitterness of defeat.

But if he won?  The long years of dishonor
through which he had struggled, without a name,
without kindred, without friends, loomed large
before him—mute, merciless years of struggle,
privation, and emptiness.  If he won, there was
more than one victory to be gained in this fight, a
moral victory as well as a physical one—the triumph
of an eternal truth, the vindication of a forgotten
wrong.  If he won he would tell General Bent
the truth—not as a son to a father, but as one
merciless enemy to another, asking no quarter and
giving none.

The only connection for Kinney at Saguache was
with the later train, but Jeff had arranged for a
motor-car which took him over the Pass and landed
him at Kinney in time for the twelve o'clock train
for Denver, where he arrived at six o'clock that
evening.  Larry met him at the station, smiling
broadly.

"I think we've put a spoke in their wheel, Jeff,"
he laughed.  "But we must keep dark.  To-morrow
morning when the banks open you're going to take up
that stock, then we're going to call on the General."

"Is everything all right?"

"Yes, Symonds is standing pat, but they don't
know it.  The new General Manager comes in
to-morrow, but Symonds's orders will go through first.
That train will run, Jeff—sure."

"Poor old Larry! a fine honeymoon you're having!
Where's your wife?"

"At the Wetherall Ranch.  Went out there last
night.  Her mother has been out to see her.  It
looks as though they might come around.  It's
too bad I had to go against them just now, but
Mr. Janney forced my hand, and I had to.  You
understand, don't you, Jeff?"  And, explaining as they
went, Berkely followed Jeff out of the station, into
a motor-car that was awaiting them.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CRISIS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CRISIS

.. vspace:: 2

One of the rooms in Janney's suite had been
turned into an office for General Bent,
and here it was that all the conferences
between the officers of the Amalgamated Reduction
Company and their underlings had taken place.
The big men of Denver had all called to pay their
respects to the bigger man from the East, and
some of them had taken part in the business of
reorganizing the Denver and California and its
subsidiary companies.

But in spite of the conditions which had made
Bent's control of the railroad possible and the money
the crowd would make out of it, everybody in this
intimate circle knew that the real object of the
General's financial operations was the fight of the
Amalgamated Reduction Company for the ownership
of the Saguache Smelter.  The reorganization
of the Denver and California had now been
completed, and this morning orders had gone forth
removing Clinton, Symonds, and all the old crowd
from the active management of the road.

General Bent sat at the end of the long desk
table in conference with Curtis Janney, Cortland
Bent, and a youngish-oldish, keen-eyed man in a
cutaway coat and white waistcoat.  This was Henry
McCabe of Denver—attorney for the Amalgamated—the
shrewdest lawyer west of the Missouri
River, and one of the shrewdest east of it.  In
front of McCabe on the desk was a leather portfolio
from which a number of papers protruded.  Behind
him sat a clerk who had been taking down in
shorthand his questions and the replies of two men at
the farther end of the table.  These men were
roughly dressed, and, though at the present moment
each of them smoked one of Curtis Janney's
remarkable cigars, they sat aloof and uncomfortable
on their gilt chairs, assuming attitudes of ease they
were far from feeling.  One of the strangers was
Max Reimer, the man who had discovered the lost
vein in the "Lone Tree" mine.  The other was Fritz
Weyl, one-time barkeeper of Pete Mulrennan's
saloon in Mesa City.

McCabe's examination had hardly been concluded
when two cards were brought in by a page and
handed to Cortland Bent.  He glanced at them,
and then, without comment, laid them on the
table before his father.

"H—m!  He's here now," muttered the General,
staring grimly.  "He's saved us the trouble of
sending for him."  He tossed the cards on the
table and rose.  "There's nothing more you
wanted to ask, was there, McCabe?"

"No, sir, nothing.  I know all I need to."

"I thought so.  Will you take these men
downstairs?  But have them within call—I may need
them.  Have Harbison handy, too.  Curtis, you'll
stay, of course—and you, Cort."  Then to the
waiting servant, "Show these gentlemen up."

When Wray and Berkely entered, General Bent
had resumed his chair at the head of the table, and
Cortland and Curtis Janney sat on either side of
him.  The General's head was bent forward in its
customary pose, his shaggy brows lowered so that his
eyes were scarcely visible, but in the smile that
twisted one end of his thin lips Berkely read a
sardonic confidence in the outcome of the interview.
On entering the room Wray fixed his wide gaze
on General Bent, his eyes gleaming strangely, and
kept it on him as though fascinated, until, at a word
from Cortland Bent, he sank into a chair beside
Berkely.  Aside from this civility, no amenities
passed.  General Bent had sunk back in his armchair,
coolly swinging his glasses by their cord, while
he keenly eyed Berkely, who had begun talking.
Curtis Janney, trying to bury his personal animosities
in the present issue, folded his stout arms
resolutely and leaned forward upon the table.

"We understand, General Bent, that it is
you—representing Eastern interests—who have obtained
a majority of the stock of the Denver and California
Railroad Company.  Am I correctly informed?"

General Bent's head dropped the fraction of an
inch.  "Your information is correct," he said shortly.

"As general counsel for the Saguache Short
Line," Berkely went on, "I am here to inform you
that, in accordance with a contract entered into in
March of last year, the Denver and California made
certain traffic arrangements with my Company
conditional upon the completion of the Saguache
Short Line upon a specified date.  My company
accepted these conditions and has succeeded in
carrying out to the letter the terms of its
agreements——"

"One moment, Mr. Berkely," put in the General
with a vague attempt to be humorous, "if I may ask,
what is the Saguache Short Line?  A telegraph,
stage, or railroad company?"

Wray's jaw set, and he glared angrily, but Berkely
only smiled.

"A railroad company, sir," he said with suave
directness, "controlling a right of way from Pueblo
to Saguache—the most direct line from the Saguache
to the market.  Our tracks are laid, our signals
in place, our stations built, and this morning we
are advised that the Denver and California is running
its first train through from Pueblo to Saguache!"

The three men started, and Berkely grinned.

"I may add that in addition to Mr. Clinton
(who at ten o'clock this morning had not yet
retired from the presidency of your road), the train
also carries other officers of your company as well
as stockholders of mine.  A lunch has been provided
at the northern terminus of the road, and a spirit
of harmony dominates the occasion—one which
I'm sure you'll admit is noteworthy in every particular."

General Bent's brow twitched ominously.  "I
hope, Mr. Berkely, you'll come to the point without
delay," he said.

"Willingly.  The Saguache Short Line has fulfilled
its part of the contract.  The present officers
of your company are willing to carry out theirs.
The object of our visit was merely to reassure
ourselves of your friendly disposition—the friendly
disposition of the newly elected officers of your
road—and to arrange with all proper haste a
practical schedule for the operation of the line."

Larry paused and sank back in his chair with a smile.
General Bent had risen and was leaning forward over
the table toward Berkely, his face a thunder-cloud.

"You want a schedule, do you?" he growled, his
voice deepening.  "Well, I'll give you one—I'll
give it to you now, and it won't take a great while,
either.  As long as I'm in control of the Denver
and California Railroad Company not a wheel shall
turn on your little jerk-water line within a mile of
Pueblo.  That's my answer to your proposition.
Our yard limit marks your terminus—do you
understand?  Get your ore there if you can find
any," he finished brutally.

But Berkely refused to lose his temper.

"You're aware, of course," he said coolly, "that
such a policy is likely to prove expensive?"

"You'll have to show that."

"I think we will.  But I can't believe that you
repudiate this contract," said Larry, tapping a
paper with his forefinger.

"I didn't make that contract.  I would never
have made it.  The courts will pass on its validity."

"Then this is final?"

"Absolutely.  Is there anything more you want
to say?"

"I think that's all, General Bent," said Berkely,
rising.  "I had hoped you would have been willing
to meet us in a fair spirit.  Failing to discover
that—either in your attitude or your demeanor—I
suppose there is nothing else to be said."

"One moment," interrupted the General, sinking
back in his chair with an effort at self-control.
"Sit down, please.  There's something more to
be said—something which you both may be
interested to hear."  And he addressed his remarks
directly to Wray.  "I can't say that I've watched
your efforts to put your plans through without some
interest, Mr. Wray.  Under other circumstances
I may say that I would have been compelled to a
kind of admiration for your fruitless perseverance.
It's all the more remarkable in the face of the
obstacles with which you had to contend.  But we are
fully informed as to your actual financial strength,
and I think the time has come when we may draw
aside the veil and speak frankly.  Mr. Berkely
informs me that he intends to proceed against the
Denver and California Railroad Company.  To
do this, of course, he must have the proper authority.
Are you sure that he can get it?"

Larry smiled.  "I think so."

"To do so he requires, does he not, a majority vote
of the Denver and Saguache Railroad Company as
well as that of the Short Line—those two companies
and the Development Company, as I understand it,
being in a way dependent one upon the other?"

"That is correct."

The General settled back in his chair, swinging
his gold eyeglasses daintily.

"How is he going to get that authority?" he asked.

His smile infuriated Wray, who replied quickly.

"By virtue of my control of all companies," he
said crisply.

"Your control?" said Bent; "you have no control.
I know your resources to a dollar, Mr. Wray.
To-day at twelve o'clock your Denver and Saguache
Railroad Company stock will be in my possession."

Wray exchanged a glance with Berkely and
laughed dryly.

"Oh, you're really coming in with us at last, are
you, General?" he said.  "That's fine!"  And then
with a chuckle, "Your name on the directorate of
the Denver and Saguache ought to have some weight
with the new officers of the Denver and California."

The frown on Bent's brows deepened.  The point
of this joke did not dawn on him.

"That stock has always been for sale," Wray went
on.  "Everything I have is for sale when the man
comes along who can afford to buy it.  It's funny,
though, General Bent, that you haven't said
anything to me about it."

A slight twitching of Bent's lips and the nervous
movement of his fingers among the papers on the
table.  Was this really a joke or only the last
manifestation of Wray's colossal impudence?  He
chose to think it the latter.

"It hasn't been necessary to say anything to
you about it, sir," he said sternly.  "To-day at
noon two million and a half of that stock is thrown
on the market at a bargain—at a very great
bargain.  But I'm the only man in the United States
who would dare to touch it.  I'm the only man in
the world, except yourself, to whom it's worth a
dollar.  I know your resources down to the last
dime.  *You* haven't the money to take it up.  I
*have*.  At noon that stock will be mine, so will you
be mine—your two railroads and your smelter,
at the price I choose to pay for them."

Jeff sat quietly, one of his hands toying with the
top of an inkstand, which he was regarding with
friendly interest.

"Are you *sure*, General?" he asked calmly.

General Bent clasped his twitching fingers to keep
them still.  "Why, sir—what do you mean?"

"That you're mistaken, that's all.  That stock
is for sale, but you'll still have to come to me to
buy it."

"How——"

"Because I paid off those notes this morning.
That stock is in my safe-deposit vault, where it's
going to stay—unless"—and he smiled
sarcastically—"unless you still want it."

General Bent's face paled and grew red, then
purple.  He struggled to his feet with difficulty.
His plans didn't often miscarry, and the fact that one
of the links of the chain he had tested so carefully
had failed to hold completely mystified him.
How—where had Jeff Wray succeeded in raising eight
hundred thousand dollars when the limit of his
borrowing capacity had long ago been reached?
For months the wonderful secret organization of
the Amalgamated had been at work prying into the
affairs of Wray's companies and had figured his
possible resources to the thinnest part of a hair.
He had not sold the "Lone Tree" or even the
smallest interest in it, and yet there he was apparently
entrenched as firmly as ever.  General Bent gasped
in amazement.  Only the interposition of Providence
could have made such a thing possible.  Cortland
Bent had gone into the adjoining room suddenly,
and Wray knew he was verifying this information
over the telephone.  But General Bent did not wait
for him to return.  To his mind this news needed
no verification.  It was time for him to play his
last card—and his best.

"You d—d young scoundrel," he said in a
hoarse whisper, his voice trembling with fury, while
Wray and Berkely rose angrily and faced him.  "I
won't mince matters with you any longer.  You
thought when you stole that mine three years ago
that you had covered all your tracks and made
yourself safe from civil suits.  Mr. Berkely planned
well.  We fought you in the courts and lost.  I
suppose you thought we had given up.  We did
let up, but it was only to get a firmer hold.  We've
got it now, and we're going to use it.  You stole
that mine—trespassed on our property at night
and tried to murder one of our employes.  You
assaulted him and would have killed him if you
hadn't been interrupted——"

"That's a lie!" said Jeff calmly.

"You'll have a chance to prove that.  You lured
Max Reimer into a gambling den and put him out
of business so that he couldn't prevent my son from
signing that lease."

"That's another lie!  He was drunk and violent
and drew a gun on me.  My partner struck him
down.  His head hit the edge of a table."

"Nonsense, sir.  We have a witness who verifies
Reimer in every particular, who swears he saw from
the doorway——"

"Who is your witness?"

"Fritz Weyl—I see you remember him.  He——"

Wray laughed uneasily.  "Yes, I remember Fritz?"

Bent came one step nearer, waving a trembling
hand at Cortland, who had returned and was trying
to restrain him.  But the General shook him off.

"We dropped those civil suits because we thought
it was wise to do so, and because we knew that in
time we would be in a position to win in other ways.
There are other processes of law besides the civil
ones, and those are the ones we choose to take.
Before you can leave Denver you'll be arrested on
charges of abduction and conspiracy.  I suppose
you know what that means?"

Jeff grew a shade paler, his eyes blazing their
resentment at the old man who stood tottering
before him.

"You'd do that—you?" cried Jeff, hoarsely,
struggling hard to keep himself under control.
"You'd hire men to send me to the penitentiary
because I've balked your plans—because I've beaten
you in a fair fight against odds;—*you?—you?*"  Wray
clenched his fist and took a step forward, but
Larry Berkely seized him by the arm, and Cortland
Bent stepped between.

General Bent pushed his son aside.

"Go, Cort—call McCabe.  We'll see——"

At this moment there was an interruption.

"Wait a moment, Cort, please," said a voice.

The door into Mr. Janney's parlor had opened
suddenly, and Mrs. Cheyne had entered the room.
And while the General eyed her angrily, too amazed
to speak, she strode quickly forward into the group
and continued quietly,

"There has been a mistake—a terrible mistake.
If you'll let me explain——"

General Bent was the first to recover his senses.
"Rita!  Leave the room at once!" he commanded.

"No," she said firmly, "not until you hear what
I have to say——"

"I can't listen now—another time," he fumed.

"No, now.  I'm going to save you from doing
something that you'll regret the rest of your life."

While the General questioned, Jeff had turned and
seized her by the arm, his eyes pleading.

"Rita!" he muttered, "You know? .... For
God's sake, don't! ... Not now!"

.. _`"'Rita!' he muttered, 'You know?'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-354.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "'Rita!' he muttered, 'You know?'"

   "'Rita!' he muttered, 'You know?'"

"Yes," she said firmly.  "No one else will.  I must."

Cornelius Bent and Cortland had watched Wray
in amazement.  His face had suddenly grown white
and drawn.

"You have no right to tell him, Rita," he persisted.
"It's my secret!—not yours!  You can't!  I tell you."

But she eluded him and faced the General.

"You must listen to me, Cousin Cornelius."

Curtis Janney, who had been watching Wray
closely, now interposed.

"Let her speak, General.  It seems to be
something of more than usual importance."

"Very well," he growled, "but be brief."

"I can't tell it here," she insisted.  "I must
speak to you alone."

"Alone?  Why?"

"It's a private matter.  Will you come into the
next room, there's no one there——"

She turned and was moving toward the door when
Jeff's large figure blocked the way.

"You don't know what you're doing, Rita,"
he whispered.  "You can't.  I forbid it."  But
Berkely, who had been watching the General, took
Jeff by the arm and held him by main force.

"Stand aside, sir," said General Bent, roughly
brushing by.  "If there's something you want
concealed, it's something I want to hear."  And he
followed, banging the door behind him.

Jeff made a movement as though he would
follow—then turned toward Cortland Bent and Janney,
who had watched this extraordinary change in the
demeanor of their enemy with wonder and some
curiosity.  Jeff stared at them wildly and took up
his hat, saying in a strange voice,

"Come, Larry, I must get away from here—at
once," and, opening the door, he fled madly down
the corridor.

Berkely paused a moment.  "We have no intention
of dodging any issues," he said quietly.  "If
any of you gentlemen want to see Mr. Wray or me,
you can find us both at the Wetherall Ranch to-morrow."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE CALL OF THE HEART`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE CALL OF THE HEART

.. vspace:: 2

Larry caught up with Jeff outside the
elevator shaft, where he found him striding
up and down like a caged beast.  Jeff
entered the car in a daze and followed Larry blindly
across the huge lobby downstairs and out of doors
to a motor which was waiting for them at the curb.
Larry was still bewildered at the surprising
conclusion of their visit and eyed his companion sharply,
but Jeff sat with folded arms, looking neither to the
right nor left as they whirled through the city
streets and out into the highroad.  The hunted
look in Jeff's eyes warned Larry not to speak, so he
sat beside his partner patiently and waited.

Suddenly, without moving, Jeff's great hand
shot out and clinched Larry's knee like a vise.

"He—he's my father, Larry," said Jeff hoarsely,
"my father—do you understand?  I didn't want
him to know."

Larry put his hand over Jeff's and gripped it
hard.  He knew what other people in Mesa City
knew of Jeff's birth, but no words occurred to him.
The information had taken his breath away.

"I didn't want him to know," Jeff went on.  "I
wanted to wait—to tell him myself when things
had broken right for us.  I wanted to win—to
show him I was his master—not to come crawling
and licking his boots for mercy.  I'll not do it now,
either, by G—d.  He can break me to bits, but
he'll never own me—I never was his—I never
will be——"

"He hasn't broken us yet, Jeff.  He can't keep
us out of Pueblo.  We're going to win, I tell you."

"We've got to win, Larry," groaned Jeff.  "We've
got to win.  That conspiracy charge——"

"Mere piffle," said Larry.  "Don't worry.
They've bought Fritz Weyl.  He's not a
competent witness.  I can prove it."

Jeff sank back again, his gaze on the mountains.
"He'd send me to Cañon City—to the penitentiary—if
he could—and he's—my father."

Larry bit his lip, but didn't reply, for his mind
was working rapidly.  He had a perspective on the
situation which had been denied to Jeff, and the
vista did not seem unpleasant.  He was prepared
to fight for Jeff's interests and his own to the bitter
end, but he was too keen a lawyer and too sound a
philosopher not to know the value of compromise,
and, in spite of himself, it was his legal mind which
grasped the essentials of Jeff's relation to their
common enemy.  What would be the effect of this
astonishing revelation on the mind of General Bent?
He did not dare speak of this to Jeff, who in his
present mood could only misinterpret him; but he
was still thinking of it when the car drew up
at the steps at Wetherall's big bungalow palace.
Gretchen and their hostess met the arrivals at the
door, and Jeff followed them in slowly.  He wanted
to be alone again to think—and here was sanctuary.
Gretchen paused at the entrance to the morning
room, and, taking Jeff by the arm, opened the door,
pushed him in quickly, and closed it behind him.
And while Jeff was wondering what it all meant he
heard a step beside him, felt the timid touch of
a hand on his sleeve, and found his eyes looking
down into Camilla's.

"Jeff," she was whispering, "they told me you
needed me, and so I came to you.  Do you want me?"

He looked at her mistily, for the misfortunes which
hung about him had dulled his perceptions.  It
seemed strange that she should be there, but he
experienced no surprise at seeing her.

"Yes, I want you," he said absently.  "Of course
I want you."  He fingered the hand on his sleeve
and patted it gently, as he would have done a child's,
but she saw with pain that the tragedy of his birth
now overshadowed all other issues.  If he was
thinking of her at all, it was of the other Camilla—the
Camilla he had known longest—the gingerbread
woman that she had been.  It hurt her, but she knew
that it was her own fault that he could not think
otherwise.  She took his hand in her own warm
fingers, and held it closely against her breast.

"Jeff, dear, look at me.  I'm not the woman that
I used to be.  I'm the real Camilla, now—the
Camilla you always hoped I'd be.  I'm changed.
Something has happened to me.  I want you to
understand—I'm not a graven image now, Jeff,
I'm just—your wife."

He looked at her, bewildered, but in her eyes he
saw that what she said was true.  They were
different eyes from the ones he had known—softened,
darker—and looked up into his own pleadingly,
wet with compassion, the tender, compelling eyes of a
woman whose soul is awakened.  She released his
hand and threw her arms around his neck, lifting
her face to his.  "Don't you understand, Jeff?  I
want you.  I want you.  I've never wanted anybody else."

His arms tightened about her, and their lips met.
She was tangible now—no mere image to be
worshipped from afar, but a warm idol of flesh and
blood, to be taken into one's heart and enshrined
there.

"Camilla, girl.  Is it true?"

"Yes," she whispered, "it has always been true—only
I didn't know it.  I love you, Jeff.  I love
you—oh, how I love you!  Better than myself—better
than all the world.  Do you realize it now?"

He took her head between his hands and held
it away so that he might look deep into her eyes
and be sure.  Their lashes dropped once or twice
and hid them, but that made them only the more
lovely when they opened again.  For in them he
read the whole measure of his happiness and hers.

"Yes, it's true.  I know it now.  You've never
looked at me like that—never before."  He bent her
head forward and would have kissed her—as he
sometimes used to do—on the forehead—but she
would not let him.

"No, not that kiss—the cold kiss of homage,
Jeff.  I don't want to be venerated.  You're not
to kiss me like that again—ever.  My
lips—they're yours, Jeff—my lips ... No one
else—no, never ... they're yours."

So he took them, and in their sweetness for a
while found forgetfulness of his bitterness.  At last
she led him to a big chair by the window, made him
sit, and sank on the floor at his feet.

"You're not going back to Kansas?" he asked
anxiously.

She smiled.  "Not unless you want me to."

He drew her into his arms again.  "I'll never
want you to.  I want you here—close—close—my girl."

"You must never leave me again, Jeff—I've
suffered so."

"I couldn't stand seeing you.  I thought you
loved——"  She put her fingers over his lips and
would not let him finish.

"No—not now——don't speak of that, it's all
a nightmare.  But you must never leave me again.
I want to be with you always.  I want to take
my half of your troubles."

His head bowed, the grasp of his hands relaxed,
and his eyes stared into vacancy.

"My troubles—yes, there are a lot of them.
Perhaps you won't care for me so much when I'm
down and out, Camilla.  I suppose I ought to tell
you.  He—my father is going to have me
indicted for conspiracy—about the mines.  He's
going to try to jail me—if he can."

She started up, terror-stricken.

"Oh, he couldn't—even he—couldn't do a
thing like that."

"Oh, yes, he could," grimly.  "He has bribed
Reimer and Fritz Weyl.  They swear I tried to
murder Max."

"But you didn't, Jeff—tell me you didn't," she
said tremulously.  "You know you never told me
what happened, and I've feared—you were
desperate in those days—and lawless."

"I'm desperate and lawless yet," he muttered.
"But I'd never try to kill a man just for money.
We offered Max Reimer a share in the mine—a
good share—but he wanted to hog it all.  I told
him he was a drunken fool, and he tried to shoot me.
Mulrennan struck him, and knocked him out.
I wouldn't be here now if he hadn't.  I don't know
why I never told you.  I suppose I thought you
wouldn't understand.  I left Mulrennan trying
to bring him around—and went down and bought
that lease.  That's all."

"Thank God," she crooned.  "I've been so
afraid.  There have been so many stories."

"Lies—all lies—circulated by him.  Now he's
got Reimer to swear to them."

She threw her arms around his neck and searched
his face anxiously.

"Jeff—he can't make people believe——"

"He wants to ruin me—and he'll do it if he can.
There's no telling what money will do.  He squeezed
Conrad Seemuller and made him a bankrupt.
Seemuller drank himself to death.  Jimmy Ott
blew out his brains.  Oh, don't be afraid—I'm
not going to do either—I'm not going to be crushed
like a worm.  If he ruins me, he'll pay dear for the
privilege.  I'll drag him down with me, and he'll
drop farther than I will.  I wanted to keep things
quiet—but I won't any longer.  I'll tell the world
my story—his story, and let the world judge
between us."

He tramped up and down the floor like a madman
until Camilla interposed and led him to a divan.
He followed her like a child and let her sit beside
him while she questioned him as to what had
happened.  Jeff had looked for sanctuary, and he had
found it at last.  The other people in the house did
not disturb them, and they sat for a long time alone,
exchanging the confidences which had been so long
delayed; but they were none the less sweet on that
account.  Late in the afternoon Camilla questioned
Jeff again about the happenings of the morning.
Rita Cheyne's part in the situation did not surprise
her.  She knew that Rita had heard everything
and had decided to continue to play the game with
Fate in Jeff's behalf.  But she did not tell Jeff so.
When he questioned her she told him what had
happened at the Kinney House after he had left.

"Oh, Jeff, I don't know how I could have
misjudged you so.  Rita opened my eyes—why she
chose to do it, I don't know.  She's a strange
woman—I can't quite make her out even now.
She's half angel, half vixen, but I'll never forget
her—never!"  Camilla put her hand over Jeff's
suddenly.  "That money—Jeff—you must pay
her back that money—if you have to sell the mine."

"I can't sell the mine—not now.  It would
clean me out."

"I don't care," she pleaded.  "I don't want
money.  It has brought nothing but unhappiness
to either of us.  I want to begin all over again.
I've learned my lesson.  I look back to the old days
and wonder what I could have been dreaming of.
I've seen all I want of the world.  Happiness belongs
in the heart—no amount of money can buy it a
place there.  I want to be poor again—with you.
Give him—give General Bent what he wants, Jeff—that
will satisfy him, won't it?  Please, Jeff, for
my sake!  Sell out the smelter and the mine——"

"Never!"  Jeff's jaw set, and he rose, putting
her aside almost roughly.

"I'll never give them up while I've an ounce of
blood to fight!"

His tongue faltered and was silent.  Camilla
followed his startled gaze through the open window
at an automobile, from the tonneau of which a man
hurriedly descended.

"What can it mean?" Jeff was asking as though
to himself.  "Cort Bent!  What does he want?"

"It's very curious," Camilla said slowly.  "To
see you——"

When Bent came into the room a moment later
they were both aware of the imminence of important
revelations.  Camilla had not seen him for two
months, and she was conscious of a slight sense of
shock at his appearance.  Jeff, too, noted that he
was very pale and that in his eyes there hung a
shadow of the misfortune that had marked them all.

At the door Cortland turned to Mrs. Berkely
who had met him in the hall.

"If you don't mind, Gretchen, I'd like to speak
to him alone."  And, when Camilla would have gone,
"No, Camilla, it concerns you, too."  While they
wondered what was coming he walked past Camilla
and put a hand on Jeff's shoulder, the lines in his
face softening gently.

"They've told me, Jeff.  I know.  I've come
to offer you my hand."  And, as Jeff still stared
at him uncertainly, "You won't refuse it, will you!"

There was a nobility in the simple gesture, a
depth of meaning in the quiet tones of his voice.
Camilla alone knew what those few words were
costing him, and she watched Jeff, who was
standing as though he had been turned to stone, his
head bent forward upon his breast, his deep-set
eyes peering under his brows as General Bent's had
often done.  His eyes found Cortland's at last,
searching them keenly, but he found in them only
a small bright flame of fellowship among the embers
of regret.  Jeff's fingers twitched a little, then his
hand came forward impulsively, and the two men
clasped hands.

"I'm sorry, Jeff—I am—from the bottom of
my heart.  I want you to understand."

"I do," said Jeff, with difficulty.  "I didn't
want you to know——"

"I'm glad.  I think it's better so."

He paused a moment before going on.  "I want—I
want you and Camilla to go right back with me.
Can you?  That's what I came to ask.  Father is ill."

"Ill?" stammered Jeff.

"A stroke of apoplexy—the sudden shock of
discovering all this."  Jeff and Camilla started
forward with one impulse of horror.  "Rita and Aunt
Caroline were with him, and Rita had told him the
truth—the doctors are there—he has recovered
consciousness, but his left side is paralyzed,
completely paralyzed."

Jeff sank heavily in a chair and buried his face
in his hands.

"What do the doctors say?" asked Camilla anxiously.

"That he's very sick—that's all.  Nobody can
tell.  I've wired Chicago for a specialist.  We can
only wait and hope.  It's pretty desperate—I
know that.  He's an old man—and he's grown
older lately."

Cort stopped speaking and walked to the window,
while Camilla watched him pityingly.  He wasn't
like the old Cort she used to know, and yet there
was something inexpressively appealing in his
gentleness which reminded her of the moods in him she
had liked the best.  She glanced at Jeff.  His
head was still buried in his hands, and he had not
moved.  But Camilla knew that this startling
revelation was causing a rearrangement of all Jeff's
ideas.  In that moment she prayed that Jeff's
bitterness might be sweetened—that the tragedy
which had suddenly stalked among them might
soften his heart to pity for the old man who was his
father and his enemy.

Cortland turned and spoke with an effort.

"Will you go back with me, Jeff?  When he first
recovered consciousness he spoke your name.  He has
been asking for you ever since.  He wants——"

Jeff's eyes peered above his trembling fingers.

"He asked—for me?" he said hoarsely.

"Yes—he wants to see you."

Jeff's head sank into his hands again.

"He wants—to see *me*?  I can't—seem to
realize——"

"It's true—he asked me to bring you."

There was a long period of silence, during which
Jeff's long, bony fingers clasped and unclasped back
of his head as he struggled with himself.  "I can't,"
he groaned at last.  "I can't.  It has been too
long—too much."  He straightened in disorder
and went on wildly: "Why, he has dogged my steps
for months—used all his genius and cunning to
do away with me—tried to rid himself of me as he
did years ago—and even hired men to swear my
liberty away."  His head dropped into his hands
again and he leaned forward, his elbows on his
knees.  "No, I can't, Cort.  I can't.  It's too
much to ask—too much."

Cortland stood in the middle of the floor, his arms
folded, head bent, waiting for the storm to pass,
his own pain engulfed in the greater pain of the
man before him.  He did not try to answer Jeff,
for there was no answer to be made.  It was not
a moment for words, and he knew he had no right
even to petition.  It was a matter for Jeff's heart
alone—a heart so long embittered that even if
it refused this charity, Cortland could not find it
in his own heart to condemn.

With a glance at Cortland, Camilla went over to
Jeff and laid her fingers lightly on his shoulder.

"Jeff," she said with gentle firmness, "you must
go—to your father."  But, as he did not move,
she went on.  "You forget—he did not know.
Perhaps if he had known he would have tried to
make atonement before.  Do you realize what it
means for a man like General Bent to make such
a request at such a time?  You can't refuse, Jeff.
You can't."

Jeff moved his head and stared for a long time
at the fireplace, his fingers clenched on the chair
arms, turning at last to Cortland.

"Do you—do you think he'll die?" he asked.
"What do they say?"

"His heart is bad," said Cort gravely.  "I don't
know—a man of father's years seldom recovers
from a thing like that——"

But it was Camilla who interposed.  She stepped
between the two men and took Jeff Ly the arm.
"Cort can't go back without you, Jeff," she said
passionately.  "Don't you see that?  He can't.  You've
got to go.  If your father died to-night you'd never
forgive yourself.  He may have done you a wrong,
but God knows he's trying to right it now.  You've
got to let him."  Cortland watched them a moment,
then suddenly straightened and glanced at his watch.

"I can't stay here any longer," he said.  "I've
got to go back to him.  There is much to be done,
and I'm the only one to do it.  This is my last
plea—not that of a dying man's son for his father,
but of a brother to a brother for the father of both.
Come back with me—Jeff.  Not for his sake—but
for your own.  It is your own blood that is
calling you—pitifully—you can't refuse."

Jeff struggled heavily to his feet and passed his
hands across his eyes, and then, with a sudden sharp
intake of his breath, he turned to Cortland, his
lips trembling.

"I'll go," he said hoarsely.  "If he wants me,
I'll go, Cort.  Something is drawing me—something
inside of me that awoke when you told me
what had happened.  I've been fighting against
it, the habit of thirty years was fighting it, but
I've got to go.  I'd be cursed if I didn't.  You're
sure he really wants me, Cort?"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`GENERAL BENT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   GENERAL BENT

.. vspace:: 2

The room at the hotel into which Cortland
showed them was a part of General Bent's
own suite.  Curtis Janney and a doctor
consulted near the window, and a nurse from the
hospital, in her white linen uniform and cap, hovered
near.  Jeff's questioning gaze sought the crack
of the door of the darkened room adjoining.

"I think you may go in, Mr. Bent," said the
doctor to Cortland.  "He's conscious at longer
intervals now.  It looks very much more hopeful,
sir.  He still asks for Mr. Wray."

Cortland followed the doctor into the sick room,
while Janney joined Jeff and Camilla and waited.

"Will he—get over it, Mr. Janney?" Camilla
asked softly.

"Oh, I think so now—we didn't at first.  Only
one side is affected.  He can even move the
hand a little.  Of course, it may be a long time."

Jeff listened in a daze.  The baby stare had come
into his eyes again, and it moved from one object
in the room to another—always returning to the
door of the darkened room into which Cortland had
vanished.  There was an odor of medicine, the
sound of crackling ice, and now the murmur of
voices.  A moment later one of the nurses appeared
in the doorway.

"Mr. Wray," she said, "you may come in."

And Jeff entered, passing Cortland, who stood
with bowed head at the door.  In the darkness he
could just make out the white figure of the old man
propped up against the pillows.  He breathed with
difficulty, and Jeff, unused to scenes of sickness, felt
all his heart go out in pity for the helpless old man
who was calling for him.

"Is he here?" the General murmured.  "Is he here?"

Jeff moved quietly around the bed to the chair
which the nurse had placed for him, "Yes, sir,"
he said huskily.  "It's Jeff."

The General's right hand groped feebly along the
covers, and Jeff took it in both of his own.  "Cort
told me you wanted me, sir."

"I'm glad—very glad."  He turned his head
and tried to smile.  "It was—so—so sudden—the
news," he said with an effort, "to find out——"

"I'm sorry, sir.  I didn't want you to know."

"I'm glad to know.  It makes me—happy.  I've
been trying for so many years to find you."

"You tried?" in astonishment.

"Yes, I didn't know anything about—about
having a son—until it was too late.  One of my
associates—in the West—told me later.  I tried
to find out—where they had taken you, but the
nurse in the hospital—had gone—and there was
no record of her—or of—of you."  He spoke
with a great effort, striving against the drowsiness
which from time to time attacked him.  "They
did things—differently in those days.  She—your
mother—never mentioned my name.  We had had
a quarrel—a serious quarrel—just after we were
married——"

"Married?"  Jeff leaned forward over the white
coverlid toward the old man's distorted face.  "You
were married?" he whispered, awe-stricken.

"Yes, married, Jeff—married—I—I have the
papers—at home—I'll show them to you——"

Jeff bent his head suddenly over the old man's
lean fingers and kissed them impulsively.

"Married!" he murmured, "Thank God!  Thank
God for that."

The General's eyes followed him plaintively,
while he struggled for breath.  "Yes, it's true.  In
Topeka—Kansas.  That's what I wanted to tell
you.  I couldn't go—I couldn't die without
letting you know that.  It didn't matter to her—she
could forget.  I did her a wrong, but not a great
wrong, as I did you.  I've thought about you all
these years, Jeff.  It's my secret—I've kept it a long
time——"

He sank back into his pillows, exhausted, breathing
heavily again, and the doctor who had stood in
the doorway came forward.  "I think you had better
rest, General.  Mr. Wray can come in later."  But
the General resolutely waved him aside with a
movement that suggested his old authority.

"No, not yet—I'm better—I'll sleep again in a
moment."  And, as the doctor withdrew, the old
man's grasp on Jeff's hand grew tighter.  "They took
you away from the hospital—without even giving
you a name."

"Yes, sir—I had no name but the one they
gave me."  Jeff tried to make him stop talking, but
he went on, striving desperately:

"I had men working—to try and find you.  I've
their reports at home—you shall see them.  I
want you to know that I did all I could.  We got
the name of the nurse."

"Mrs. Nixon?"

"I think—no," he said confusedly.  "I can't
remember—she disappeared——"

"Yes, sir.  She married again and went to Texas.
She took me with her."

Bent's eyes searched Jeff's piteously.  "That was
it," he whispered, "that was it.  That's my excuse—I
tried, you know I tried, don't you?  It has been
my burden for years—more even lately—than
when I was younger—the wrong I had done you.
Say that you understand—won't you—my—my—son?"

The tears had come into Jeff's eyes, welled forth
like the gush of water in a dry fountain, and fell
upon the old wrinkled fingers.

"I do, sir—I do."

The General's hand left the coverlid and rested
for a moment on Jeff's shoulder.

"I hoped you would.  I've always hoped you'd
forgive me when you knew."

Jeff straightened and brushed his eyes.  "There's
nothing to forgive.  I—I only want you to get
well—you will, sir.  They say you're better."

"Yes, Jeff, better—better already—but I'm
very tired.  I think—I think—I can sleep
now—but don't go away—don't go," and he sank back
in a state of coma.

General Bent recovered.  The stroke was a slight
one, and he gained strength and the use of his
faculties rapidly.  But Time had served its notice of
dispossession, and they all knew that the hour had
come when the management of Bent's great business
interests must pass to younger hands.  Within a
few weeks he was permitted to sit up for an hour
each day, and with Cortland's help took up the
loose ends of the most urgent business.  But he
tired easily, and it was evident to them all that the
days of his activity were ended.

In spite of it all, a great calm had fallen over the
General's spirit.  The quick decision, the incisive
judgment, were still his—for one doesn't forget in
a moment the habits of a lifetime of command—but
his tones were softer, his manner more gentle, and
in his eyes there had dawned a soft light of toleration
and benignity which became him strangely.

Gladys, who had come on from Lakewood, was
with him constantly and watched these changes in
her father with timid wonder.  He had never been
one to confide in his children, and it required some
readjustment of her relations with him to accept the
quiet appeal of his eyes and the sympathy and
appreciation which she found in his newly begotten
tenderness.  In Cortland, too, she saw a great change,
and it surprised her to discover the resolute,
unobtrusive way in which he met his responsibilities,
both functional and moral.  Jeff and Camilla, aware
of their anomalous position, had decided to leave
the hotel and go back to Mesa City as soon as
General Bent grew better.  It was Cortland who
prevailed on them to stay.

"We're all one family now, Jeff," he said firmly,
"one and indivisible.  Gladys and I are of a mind
on that, and father wishes it so.  Your claim on
him comes before ours—we don't forget that—we
don't want to forget it."

Jeff, unable to reply, only grasped him by the
hand.  And then, with Larry's help, the two of
them plunged into the business of straightening out
the tangle in the General's affairs and Jeff's.  It was
a matter of moment with Cortland to give the
Saguache Short Line a proper schedule at once, and so
by his dispensation on the twenty-fifth of May,
as Jeff had boasted (he thought of it now), trains
were running from Pueblo to Saguache.  The
Denver and Western, too, restored its old schedule
from Kinney, and the Saguache Mountain Development
Company resumed its business by really developing.

In the absence of his two sons, Camilla and Gladys
sat with the old man, reading or talking to him as
the fancy seized him to have them do.  He liked to
lie on a couch at the window and look out toward
the mountains beyond which Jeff's interests lay,
while Camilla told him of her husband's early
struggles in the Valley.  He questioned her eagerly,
often repeating himself, while she told him of the
"Watch Us Grow" sign, of the failure of Mesa City,
and of its rejuvenescence.

"Perhaps, after all," the old man would sigh,
"perhaps it did him no harm.  It makes me very
happy, child."  He didn't say what made him happy,
but Camilla knew.

Then there came a day when the General was
pronounced out of all danger and capable of resuming a
small share of his old responsibilities.  On that day
new articles of partnership were drawn for the firm
of Bent & Company, into which Jeff Wray was
now admitted.  The "Lone Tree" mine and the
Saguache Smelter figured in the transaction.
Mrs. Cheyne, who had a wise corner in her pretty head,
refused to accept the money which had been
advanced to Jeff Wray, and now insisted on bonds of
the Development Company and stock in the Short
Line.  Lawrence Berkely, whose peace had been
made with Curtis Janney, now became the Western
representative of the Amalgamated Reduction
Company, with Pete Mulrennan as actual head of the
Mesa City plant.  It was from General Bent that
all of the plans emanated, and Curtis Janney
without difficulty succeeded in arranging matters in
New York.  He took a sardonic pleasure in reminding
the General that he had once suggested the
advisability of using Jeff's talents for the benefit
of their company—and accepted these plans as
a slight tribute to his own wisdom.

General Bent wanted to go up to Mesa City to
see the mine, but it was thought best by the doctors
to send him East to a lower altitude, and so, about
the middle of June, Cortland took him to New York,
leaving Jeff and Camilla to stay for a while at Mesa
City, where Camilla could watch the building of
"Glen Irwin."  She could not find it in her heart
to give up the West—not altogether.  Later on
they would spend their summers there—up in
the mountains—Jeff's mountains.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HOUSEHOLD GODS—AND GODDESSES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   HOUSEHOLD GODS—AND GODDESSES

.. vspace:: 2

The years which followed seemed very short
ones to Camilla—a time of quiet delight, of
restitution, and fulfillment.  General Bent
had wanted them to come and live with him in the old
house down in Madison Avenue, and Jeff, in his
whole-hearted way, had given him the promise, but it was
Camilla who had thought it wisest for them to have
an establishment of their own.  The house was just
off the avenue near the Park, a rented place, for
Camilla had not yet arrived at the state of mind to
consider New York their home.  But most of Jeff's
time was now spent in New York—seven months
of the year at least—and she was beginning to
learn with reluctance that before long only their
summers could be spent at "Glen Irwin."  On certain
afternoons Camilla sat in the library downstairs
with her embroidery frame (she always seemed to be
sewing now), her lap covered with thin, flimsy
fabrics, the borders of which she was embellishing.
They were very tiny pieces of material, apparently
shapeless, but from time to time she held them at
arm's length before her, her head on one side, and
smiled approval of her own handiwork.  It was here
that Jeff liked to find her—thus occupied.  He had
not even contracted the habit of stopping at a club
on the way uptown, and unless he was detained on
important matters she knew when she would hear
the sound of his key in the latch outside.

Mrs. Wray had made it known that she was not
at home except to the chosen few.  The General
came on certain days for his "toddy," Gladys on
the way home from "teaing it," Mrs. Rumsen,
Dolly Haviland, and Rita Cheyne, each for a peep
behind the curtain.

Rita Cheyne came oftenest and stayed longest.
She had no social responsibilities, she claimed, except
that of seeing the small garments in Camilla's lap
made successfully.  She was hopelessly bored,
more demurely cheerful, more buoyantly pessimistic
than ever.

"What a joy it must be," she sighed, "to have an
object in life.  My objects are all subjective.  I have
a dreadful fear that I'm getting to be a philosopher."

Camilla bit off her thread and smiled.

"Platonic?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so.  I used to take such desperate
fancies to people.  I used to want to make people
like me whether they wanted to or not.  Now I'm
really indifferent.  I actually don't care whether my
hat is on straight or not.  It's such a pity.  I used
to like to be *svelte*, fluffy, and smartly groomed.  I
didn't mind suffering the tortures of the rack if I
knew I was effective.  Now—I'm positively dowdy.
I don't care what I wear so long as I'm
comfortable—and I'm actually getting *fat*, Camilla!  The
horror of it!"

Camilla looked up at the exquisite afternoon
frock, which fitted her slender figure as only one made
by Patrain could, and smiled.

"Yes, Rita, positively corpulent.  It's a pity.
You really had a good figure once."

"The worst of it is that I don't seem to care,"
she went on, oblivious.  "I used to love to dress for
moods—for my moods and for other people's.  I
thought that Art could solve every problem that came
to me.  Art!" she sniffed contemptuously.  "Art
in a woman is merely a confession of inefficiency.  I
used to think that Art was immortal.  Now I find
that only Nature is."

Camilla lifted the tiny sacque with its absurd
blue silk cuffs and examined it with a satisfied air.
When she had finished she leaned over to Rita and
whispered with the air of an oracle:

"Nature *is*—immortal."

"It is.  You're right," she sighed.  "But it's my
nature to be merely mortal—and I'm going to die
very hard.  I must continue to hide my
inefficiencies—by Art."

"You're not inefficient," Camilla corrected.
"You're merely feminine—extravagantly feminine——"

"Yes, feminine—but not womanly.  Oh, I know
what I am!" she concluded fiercely.

"You're a darling!" said Camilla softly.  "You're
very much more womanly than you want people
to think you are.  Why should you take such a
delight in *these*?"  Camilla laid a hand on the wicker
basket beside her.

Rita took up one of the tiny garments and
examined it with minute interest.

"It's very pretty, isn't it?  But quite silly.
Imagine anything so tiny!  What a lot of trouble
you take.  And you've made them all yourself.
They're really exquisite."

"They're Art's tribute to Nature, Rita," said
Camilla with an air of finality.

Mrs. Cheyne sighed.

"My mission in life is ended, Camilla.  I'm quite
sure of it now.  You've convinced me.  I'm actually
envious of a woman who sits by the fire and sews
baby-clothes.  Your industry is a reproach—your
smile a reproof and your happiness a condemnation.
I know you're right.  You've really solved the
problem, and I haven't.  I never will.  I'm past
that now.  I'm going to grow old ungracefully,
yielding the smallest fraction of an inch at a
time to the inevitable.  I'm going to be stout,
I know it—and probably dumpy.  I could
weep, Camilla."

"Who's talking of weeping here?" said a voice.
And General Bent, with his stick, came thumping
in.  "Oh—you, Rita?" he laughed.  "Women
never cry unless there's something to be gained
by it."  Rita offered him her cheek, and Camilla
rang for tea.  In a moment Mrs. Rumsen came in.

"I knew you were here, Rita," she said, bending
her tall figure for a caress.

"How?"

"Teddy Wetherby's machine—at the corner—and Teddy."

"Is he waiting still?  Such a nice boy—but
absolutely oblivious of the passage of time."

"I thought you'd given up your kindergarten,
Rita," put in Camilla, laughing.

"I have.  But Teddy is my prize pupil.  He's
taking a post-graduate course."  And, when they
all laughed at her, she turned on them severely.  "I
won't have you laughing at Teddy.  He's really an
angel."

"I'm going to tell his mother," said Mrs. Rumsen.

Rita took her tea cup and sank back in her chair
absently.  "Oh, well—perhaps you'd better," she
said.  "I'm going in for square-toed shoes and
settlement meetings."

The General grunted and sipped his Scotch, but
when Jeff and Cortland came in the women were
still laughing at Mrs. Cheyne.  Jeff walked across
the room to his wife and kissed her.

"Father—Aunt Caroline—Hello!  Rita."

"Well, sir—" from Camilla, "please give an
account of yourself."

"You'll have to speak to Cort.  We stopped in
at the Club for a minute.  Cheyne was there and
Hal Dulaney, Perot, Steve Gillis, Douglas
Warrington, and two or three others.  They wanted us
to stay for dinner.  But we didn't."

"Of course not," said Camilla so decisively that
Rita Cheyne laughed.

"There!" she said pityingly.  "Oh, Jeff! a subject
and a slave as well!  Aren't you really going
to let him go, Camilla?"

Camilla looked up into Jeff's face with a heavenly
smile.

"Of course—if he *wants* to."

"But I *don't* want to," said Jeff, sinking into a
chair with a comfortable sigh.  "This is good enough
for me.  Besides," he added mischievously, "it
looked like a meeting."

"What kind of a meeting?"

"Of the Rita Cheyne Protective Association."

"Jeff, you're horrid!" said Rita, but she
laughed.

"I'm not," he said calmly.  "They have my full
sympathy and support.  I told 'em so."

"Your sins are finding you out, my dear cousin,"
chuckled the General.  "They always do in the end."

"Oh, you're hopeless—*all* of you," sighed the
culprit, setting down her tea cup.

Cortland finished his drink in leisurely fashion
and dropped into the vacant chair beside his
father.  "Well, we put it over," he said quietly.

"The bond issue?"

"Yes, sir—we had a fight in the board, but we
got McIntyre's vote at last and jammed it
through—that was all we needed."

"I didn't think it was possible," the old man
exclaimed.

"It wasn't easy, but Jeff managed it."

"I didn't sir," Jeff interposed.  "Cort did the
whole thing.  We've made him president.  We
made it unanimous in the end."

"By George, Cort, I'm proud of you.  I always
knew you had the stuff in you if we ever woke you up."

"Oh, I guess I'm awake all right.  A fellow has
to be down there."  He leaned forward and picked
up an article on the work basket.

"Where's His Majesty?" he asked of Mrs. Wray.

Camilla glanced at the clock.

"Asleep, I hope.  He's been very dissipated
lately.  He was up yesterday until seven."

"Takes after his father," said Mrs. Cheyne scornfully.

At that moment a small cry was heard upstairs,
and Camilla flew.  "The lamb!" she cried, and
from the hall they heard her telling the trained
nurse to bring the infant down.  At the bottom of
the steps she met them and bore him triumphantly
in.  He was a very small person with large round
blue eyes that stared like Jeff's.  They looked at
nobody in particular, and yet they were filled with
the wisdom of the ages.

"What a little owl he is!" said Rita, but when
she jangled her gold purse before his eyes he
seized it with both hands and gurgled
exultantly.

"He knows a good thing when he sees it," laughed
Cort.  "Got the gold fever, too."

"What a shame!" said Camilla indignantly.
"He hasn't any kind of a fever, have you, Cornelius?"

The child said, "Da!"

"Didn't I tell you?  He knows."

"He has such fuzzy pink hair!" said Cort,
rubbing it the wrong way.  "Do you think it will
stay pink?"

"You sha'n't be godfather to my son if you say
another word, Cortland.  Here, nurse, take him.
They sha'n't abuse him any longer."  She pressed
her lips rapturously against his rosy cheek and
released him.  Mrs. Rumsen gazed through her
lorgnon, while the infant, with a cry of delight,
pulled the glasses from the General's nose.

"No respect for age!  None at all!" said Mrs. Rumsen.

After a while they all went away—Rita Cheyne
to her post-graduate pupil, Mrs. Rumsen to her
brougham, and Cort and his father to the walk
downtown, leaving Camilla and Jeff sitting at the
fireside alone.  One armchair was big enough
for them both.  She sat on his knees and leaned
back against him, close in the shelter of his arms.

"You didn't want to stay out to dinner, did you,
Jeff?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," he said, "of course I did.  I'm very
fond of dining out."

She laughed contentedly.  They had dined out
only once this winter, and that was at his father's
house.  There was a long silence.

"Poor Rita," she sighed at last, "what's to
become of her?  She's not really happy, Jeff.  I
sometimes think——" she paused.

"What?"

"That she still thinks of you."

Jeff laughed.  "I hope she does.  Why, silly?"

"Simply because she never gives me the slightest
reason to think that she does."

Jeff rubbed his nose thoughtfully.

"That's one too many for me."

"Don't you know that a woman always judges
another woman by the thoughts she suppresses?"

"That's nonsense."

"No, it isn't.  I won't have you say that what
I think is nonsense."

She turned her head toward him and looked down
into his eyes.

"Are you sure you never cared for Rita?  Not a
little?"

"Sure."

"It was the Forbidden Way, Jeff.  Do you like
this way—*our* way—better?"

He held her closer in his arms and that reply
seemed adequate.  She asked him no more questions
until some moments later, and she asked him
that one because she always liked the way he
answered it.

A sudden loud rasping of the dining-room hangings
on their brass rod, and Camilla sprang up hurriedly.
She even had time to go to the mantel mirror and
rearrange the disorder of her hair before the butler
came in to announce dinner.

He was a well-trained servant.

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center

   THE END

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center medium bold

   STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY

.. class:: center large bold

   GENE STRATTON-PORTER

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center small

May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium bold

THE HARVESTER

.. vspace:: 1

Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs

"The Harvester," David Langston, is
a man of the woods and fields, who draws
his living from the prodigal hand of Mother
Nature herself.  If the book had nothing in
it but the splendid figure of this man, with
his sure grip on life, his superb optimism,
and his almost miraculous knowledge of
nature secrets, it would be notable.  But
when the Girl comes to his "Medicine
Woods," and the Harvester's whole sound,
healthy, large outdoor being realizes that
this is the highest point of life which has
come to him—there begins a romance,
troubled and interrupted, yet of the rarest idyllic quality.


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium bold

FRECKLES.

.. vspace:: 1

Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford

Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens,
but the way in
which he takes hold of life;
the nature friendships he forms in the
great Limberlost Swamp;
the manner in which everyone who meets
him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality;
and his
love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium bold

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST.

.. vspace:: 1

Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.

The story of a girl of the Michigan woods;
a buoyant, lovable
type of the self-reliant American.
Her philosophy is one of love and
kindness towards all things;
her hope is never dimmed.  And by the
sheer beauty of her soul,
and the purity of her vision, she wins from
barren and unpromising surroundings
those rewards of high courage.

It is an inspiring story of a life worth while
and the rich beauties
of the out-of-doors are strewn through all its pages.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium bold

AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.

.. vspace:: 1

Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp.
Design and decorations by
Ralph Fletcher Seymour.

The scene of this charming,
idyllic love story is laid in Central
Indiana.  The story is one of devoted
friendship, and tender
self-sacrificing love; the friendship
that gives freely without return, and
the love that seeks first the happiness
of the object.  The novel is
brimful of the most beautiful word painting
of nature, and its pathos
and tender sentiment will endear it to all.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large bold

JOHN FOX, JR'S.

.. class:: center medium bold

STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

.. class:: center small

May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.


.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center medium bold

THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.

.. vspace:: 1

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The "lonesome pine" from which the
story takes its name was a tall tree that
stood in solitary splendor on a mountain
top.  The fame of the pine lured a young
engineer through Kentucky to catch the
trail, and when he finally climbed to its
shelter he found not only the pine but the
foot-prints of a girl.  And the girl proved
to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of
these girlish foot-prints led the young
engineer a madder chase than "the trail
of the lonesome pine."



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THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

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Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as
"Kingdom Come."  It is a life rude,
semi-barbarous; but natural
and honest, from which often springs
the flower of civilization.

"Chad," the "little shepherd"
did not know who he was nor
whence he came—he had just wandered
from door to door since
early childhood, seeking shelter
with kindly mountaineers who
gladly fathered and mothered this
waif about whom there was
such a mystery—a charming waif,
by the way, who could play
the banjo better that anyone else in the mountains.



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A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND.

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Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland,
the lair of moonshiner and feudsman.
The knight is a
moonshiner's son, and the heroine
a beautiful girl perversely
christened "The Blight."  Two impetuous
young Southerners fall
under the spell of "The Blight's"
charms and she learns what
a large part jealousy and pistols
have in the love making of the
mountaineers.

Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other
stories, some of Mr. Fox's most
entertaining Cumberland valley
narratives.



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MYRTLE REED'S NOVELS

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May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

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LAVENDER AND OLD LACE.

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A charming story of a quaint corner of
New England where bygone romance finds a
modern parallel.  The story centers round
the coming of love to the young people on
the staff of a newspaper—and it is one of the
prettiest, sweetest and quaintest of old
fashioned love stories, * * * a rare book,
exquisite in spirit and conception, full of
delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful
humor and spontaneity.



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A SPINNER IN THE SUN.

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Miss Myrtle Reed may always be
depended upon to write a story
in which poetry, charm,
tenderness and humor are combined into a
clever and entertaining book.
Her characters are delightful and she
always displays a quaint humor
of expression and a quiet feeling of
pathos which give a touch of active
realism to all her writings.  In
"A Spinner in the Sun" she tells an
old-fashioned love story, of a
veiled lady who lives in solitude
and whose features her neighbors
have never seen.  There is a mystery
at the heart of the book that
throws over it the glamour of romance.



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THE MASTER'S VIOLIN.

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A love story in a musical atmosphere.
A picturesque, old German
virtuoso is the reverent possessor
of a genuine "Cremona."  He
consents to take for his pupil
a handsome youth who proves to have
an aptitude for technique,
but not the soul of an artist.  The youth
has led the happy, careless life of a modern,
well-to-do young
American and he cannot, with his meagre past,
express the love, the passion
and the tragedies of life and all its
happy phases as can the master
who has lived life in all its fulness.
But a girl comes into his life—a
beautiful bit of human driftwood
that his aunt had taken into her
heart and home, and through his
passionate love for her, he learns
the lessons that life has to
give—and his soul awakes.

Founded on a fact that all artists realize.



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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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GROSSET& DUNLAP'S

.. class:: center large bold

DRAMATIZED NOVELS

.. class:: center medium

THE KIND THAT ARE MAKING THEATRICAL HISTORY

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May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list


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WITHIN THE LAW.

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By Bayard Veiller & Marvin Dana.
Illustrated by Wm. Charles Cooke.

This is a novelization of the
immensely successful play which ran
for two years in New York and Chicago.

The plot of this powerful novel
is of a young woman's revenge
directed against her employer who
allowed her to be sent to prison
for three years on a charge of theft,
of which she was innocent.



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WHAT HAPPENED TO MARY.

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By Robert Carlton Brown.
Illustrated with scenes from the play.

This is a narrative of a young
and innocent country girt who is
suddenly thrown into the very heart
of New York, "the land of her
dreams," where she is exposed to all
sorts of temptations and dangers.

The story of Mary is being told
in moving pictures and played in
theatres all over the world.



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THE RETURN OF PETER GRIMM.

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By David Belasco.
Illustrated by John Rae.

This is a novelization of the popular play
in which David Warfield,
as Old Peter Grimm, scored such a remarkable success.

The story is spectacular and extremely pathetic but withal,
powerful, both as a book and as a play.



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THE GARDEN OF ALLAH.

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By Robert Hichens.

This novel is an intense, glowing epic
of the great desert, sunlit,
barbaric, with its marvelous atmosphere
of vastness and loneliness.

It is a book of rapturous beauty,
vivid in word painting.  The play
has been staged with magnificent
cast and gorgeous properties.



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BEN HUR.  A Tale of the Christ.

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By General Lew Wallace.

The whole world has placed this
famous Religious-Historical
Romance on a height of pre-eminence
which no other novel of its time
has reached.  The clashing of rivalry
and the deepest human passions,
the perfect reproduction of brilliant
Roman life, and the tense, fierce
atmosphere of the arena have kept
their deep fascination.  A
tremendous dramatic success.



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BOUGHT AND PAID FOR.

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By George Broadhurst and Arthur
Hornblow.  Illustrated with scenes from the play.

A stupendous arraignment of modern marriage
which has created
an interest on the stage that is almost
unparalleled.  The scenes are laid
in New York, and deal with conditions
among both the rich and poor.

The interest of the story turns
on the day-by-day developments
which show the young wife the price she has paid.



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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3



.. class:: center medium bold

GROSSET & DUNLAP'S

.. class:: center largebold

DRAMATIZED NOVELS

.. class:: center medium white-space-pre-line

   Original, sincere and courageous—often amusing—the
   kind that are making theatrical history.



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MADAME X.

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By Alexandra Bisson and J. W. McConaughy.
Illustrated with scenes from the play.

A beautiful Parisienne became an outcast because her
husband would not forgive
an error of her youth.  Her love for
her son is the great final influence in her career.  A
tremendous dramatic success.



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THE GARDEN OF ALLAH.

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By Robert Hichens.

An unconventional English woman and an inscrutable
stranger meet and love in an oasis
of the Sahara.  Staged
this season with magnificent
cast and gorgeous properties.



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THE PRINCE OF INDIA.

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By Lew. Wallace.

A glowing romance of the Byzantine Empire,
presenting
with extraordinary power the siege
of Constantinople, and
lighting its tragedy with the
warm underflow of an Oriental
romance.  As a play it is a great
dramatic spectacle.



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TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY.

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By Grace
Miller White.  Illust. by Howard Chandler Christy.

A girl from the dregs of society, loves a young Cornell
University student, and it works startling
changes in her life and
the lives of those about her.
The dramatic version is one of
the sensations of the season.



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YOUNG WALLINGFORD.

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By George Randolph
Chester.  Illust. by F. R. Gruger and Henry Raleigh.

A series of clever swindles conducted by a cheerful young
man, each of which is just on the safe
side of a State's prison
offence.  As "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,"
it is probably
the most amusing expose of money manipulation ever seen
on the stage.



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THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY.

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By P. G. Wodehouse.
Illustrations by Will Grefe.

Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur
burglary adventure and a love story.
Dramatized under the
title of "A Gentleman of Leisure," it furnishes hours of
laughter to the play-goers.



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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3



.. class:: center large bold

CHARMING BOOKS FOR GIRLS

.. class:: center small

May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list


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WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE.

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By Jean Webster.  Illustrated by C. D. Williams.

One of the best stories of life
in a girl's college that has ever been
written.  It is bright,
whimsical and entertaining, lifelike, laughable
and thoroughly human.



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JUST PATTY.

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By Jean Webster.  Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.

Patty is full of the joy of living,
fun-loving, given to ingenious
mischief for its own sake,
with a disregard for pretty convention which
is an unfailing source of joy to her fellows.



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THE POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL.

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By Eleanor Gates.  With four full page illustrations.

This story relates the experience
of one of those unfortunate children
whose early days are passed
in the companionship of a governess,
seldom seeing either parent,
and famishing for natural love and tenderness.
A charming play as dramatized by the author.



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REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM.

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By Kate Douglas Wiggin.

One of the most beautiful studies
of childhood—Rebecca's artistic,
unusual and quaintly charming qualities
stand out midst a circle of
austere New Englanders.
The stage version is making a phenomenal
dramatic record.



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NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA.

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By Kate Douglas Wiggin.  Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

Additional episodes in the girlhood
of this delightful heroine that
carry Rebecca through various stages
to her eighteenth birthday.



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REBECCA MARY.

.. vspace:: 1

By Annie Hamilton Donnell.
Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green.

This author possesses the rare gift
of portraying all the grotesque
little joys and sorrows and scruples
of this very small girl with a pathos
that is peculiarly genuine and appealing.



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EMMY LOU: Her Book and Heart.

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By George Madden Martin.
Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton.

Emmy Lou is irresistibly lovable,
because she is so absolutely real.
She is just a bewitchingly innocent,
huggable little maid.  The book is
wonderfully human.

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*Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction*

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center medium

GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK.

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.. pgfooter::