The wayfarers on the Tasajara turnpike, whom Mr. Daniel Harcourt passed with his fast trotting mare and sulky, saw that their great fellow-townsman was more than usually preoccupied and curt in his acknowledgment of their salutations. Nevertheless as he drew near the creek, he partly checked his horse, and when he reached a slight acclivity of the interminable plain—which had really been the bank of the creek in bygone days—he pulled up, alighted, tied his horse to a rail fence, and clambering over the inclosure made his way along the ridge. It was covered with nettles, thistles, and a few wiry dwarf larches of native growth; dust from the adjacent highway had invaded it, with a few scattered and torn handbills, waste paper, rags, empty provision cans, and other suburban debris. Yet it was the site of 'Lige Curtis's cabin, long since erased and forgotten. The bed of the old creek had receded; the last tules had been cleared away; the channel and embarcadero were half a mile from the bank and log whereon the pioneer of Tasajara had idly sunned himself.
Mr. Harcourt walked on, occasionally turning over the scattered objects with his foot, and stopping at times to examine the ground more closely. It had not apparently been disturbed since he himself, six years ago, had razed the wretched shanty and carried off its timbers to aid in the erection of a larger cabin further inland. He raised his eyes to the prospect before him,—to the town with its steamboats lying at the wharves, to the grain elevator, the warehouses, the railroad station with its puffing engines, the flagstaff of Harcourt House and the clustering roofs of the town, and beyond, the painted dome of his last creation, the Free Library. This was all HIS work, HIS planning, HIS foresight, whatever they might say of the wandering drunkard from whose tremulous fingers he had snatched the opportunity. They could not take THAT from him, however they might follow him with envy and reviling, any more than they could wrest from him the five years of peaceful possession. It was with something of the prosperous consciousness with which he had mounted the platform on the opening of the Free Library, that he now climbed into his buggy and drove away.
Nevertheless he stopped at his Land Office as he drove into town, and gave a few orders. “I want a strong picket fence put around the fifty-vara lot in block fifty-seven, and the ground cleared up at once. Let me know when the men get to work, and I'll overlook them.”
Re-entering his own house in the square, where Mrs. Harcourt and Clementina—who often accompanied him in those business visits—were waiting for him with luncheon, he smiled somewhat superciliously as the servant informed him that “Professor Grant had just arrived.” Really that man was trying to make the most of his time with Clementina! Perhaps the rival attractions of that Boston swell Shipley had something to do with it! He must positively talk to Clementina about this. In point of fact he himself was a little disappointed in Grant, who, since his offer to take the task of hunting down his calumniators, had really done nothing. He turned into his study, but was slightly astonished to find that Grant, instead of paying court to Clementina in the adjoining drawing-room, was sitting rather thoughtfully in his own armchair.
He rose as Harcourt entered. “I didn't let them announce me to the ladies,” he said, “as I have some important business with you first, and we may find it necessary that I should take the next train back to town. You remember that a few weeks ago I offered to look into the matter of those slanders against you. I apprehended it would be a trifling matter of envy or jealousy on the part of your old associates or neighbors which could be put straight with a little good feeling; but I must be frank with you, Harcourt, and say at the beginning that it turns out to be an infernally ugly business. Call it conspiracy if you like, or organized hostility, I'm afraid it will require a lawyer rather than an arbitrator to manage it, and the sooner the better. For the most unpleasant thing about it is, that I can't find out exactly HOW BAD it is!”
Unfortunately the weaker instinct of Harcourt's nature was first roused; the vulgar rage which confounds the bearer of ill news with the news itself filled his breast. “And this is all that your confounded intermeddling came to?” he said brutally.
“No,” said Grant quietly, with a preoccupied ignoring of the insult that was more hopeless for Harcourt. “I found out that it is claimed that this 'Lige Curtis was not drowned nor lost that night; but that he escaped, and for three years has convinced another man that you are wrongfully in possession of this land; that these two naturally hold you in their power, and that they are only waiting for you to be forced into legal proceedings for slander to prove all their charges. Until then, for some reason best known to themselves, Curtis remains in the background.”
“Does he deny the deed under which I hold the property?” said Harcourt savagely.
“He says it was only a security for a trifling loan, and not an actual transfer.”
“And don't those fools know that his security could be forfeited?”
“Yes, but not in the way it is recorded in the county clerk's office. They say that the record shows that there was an interpolation in the paper he left with you—which was a forgery. Briefly, Harcourt, you are accused of that. More,—it is intimated that when he fell into the creek that night, and escaped on a raft that was floating past, that he had been first stunned by a blow from some one interested in getting rid of him.”
He paused and glanced out of the window.
“Is that all?” asked Harcourt in a perfectly quiet, steady, voice.
“All!” replied Grant, struck with the change in his companion's manner, and turning his eyes upon him quickly.
The change indeed was marked and significant. Whether from relief at knowing the worst, or whether he was experiencing the same reaction from the utter falsity of this last accusation that he had felt when Grant had unintentionally wronged him in his previous recollection, certain it is that some unknown reserve of strength in his own nature, of which he knew nothing before, suddenly came to his aid in this extremity. It invested him with an uncouth dignity that for the first time excited Grant's respect.
“I beg your pardon, Grant, for the hasty way I spoke to you a moment ago, for I thank you, and appreciate thoroughly and sincerely what you have done. You are right; it is a matter for fighting and not fussing over. But I must have a head to hit. Whose is it?”
“The man who holds himself legally responsible is Fletcher,—the proprietor of the 'Clarion,' and a man of property.”
“The 'Clarion'? That is the paper which began the attack?” said Harcourt.
“Yes, and it is only fair to tell you here that your son threw up his place on it in consequence of its attack upon you.”
There was perhaps the slightest possible shrinking in Harcourt's eyelids—the one congenital likeness to his discarded son—but his otherwise calm demeanor did not change. Grant went on more cheerfully: “I've told you all I know. When I spoke of an unknown WORST, I did not refer to any further accusation, but to whatever evidence they might have fabricated or suborned to prove any one of them. It is only the strength and fairness of the hands they hold that is uncertain. Against that you have your certain uncontested possession, the peculiar character and antecedents of this 'Lige Curtis, which would make his evidence untrustworthy and even make it difficult for them to establish his identity. I am told that his failure to contest your appropriation of his property is explained by the fact of his being absent from the country most of the time; but again, this would not account for their silence until within the last six months, unless they have been waiting for further evidence to establish it. But even then they must have known that the time of recovery had passed. You are a practical man, Harcourt; I needn't tell you therefore what your lawyer will probably tell you, that practically, so far as your rights are concerned, you remain as before these calumnies; that a cause of action unprosecuted or in abeyance is practically no cause, and that it is not for you to anticipate one. BUT”—
He paused and looked steadily at Harcourt. Harcourt met his look with a dull, ox-like stolidity. “I shall begin the suit at once,” he said.
“And I,” said Grant, holding out his hand, “will stand by you. But tell me now what you knew of this man Curtis,—his character and disposition; it may be some clue as to what are his methods and his intentions.”
Harcourt briefly sketched 'Lige Curtis as he knew him and understood him. It was another indication of his reserved power that the description was so singularly clear, practical, unprejudiced, and impartial that it impressed Grant with its truthfulness.
“I can't make him out,” he said; “you have drawn a weak, but neither a dishonest nor malignant man. There must have been somebody behind him. Can you think of any personal enemy?”
“I have been subjected to the usual jealousy and envy of my old neighbors, I suppose, but nothing more. I have harmed no one knowingly.”
Grant was silent; it had flashed across him that Rice might have harbored revenge for his father-in-law's interference in his brief matrimonial experience. He had also suddenly recalled his conversation with Billings on the day that he first arrived at Tasajara. It would not be strange if this man had some intimation of the secret. He would try to find him that evening. He rose.
“You will stay to dinner? My wife and Clementina will expect you.”
“Not to-night; I am dining at the hotel,” said Grant, smilingly; “but I will come in later in the evening if I may.” He paused hesitatingly for a moment. “Have your wife and daughter ever expressed any opinion on this matter?”
“No,” said Harcourt. “Mrs. Harcourt knows nothing of anything that does not happen IN the house; Euphemia knows only the things that happen out of it where she is visiting—and I suppose that young men prefer to talk to her about other things than the slanders of her father. And Clementina—well, you know how calm and superior to these things SHE is.”
“For that very reason I thought that perhaps she might be able to see them more clearly,—but no matter! I dare say you are quite right in not discussing them at home.” This was the fact, although Grant had not forgotten that Harcourt had put forward his daughters as a reason for stopping the scandal some weeks before,—a reason which, however, seemed never to have been borne out by any apparent sensitiveness of the girls themselves.
When Grant had left, Harcourt remained for some moments steadfastly gazing from the window over the Tasajara plain. He had not lost his look of concentrated power, nor his determination to fight. A struggle between himself and the phantoms of the past had become now a necessary stimulus for its own sake,—for the sake of his mental and physical equipoise. He saw before him the pale, agitated, irresolute features of 'Lige Curtis,—not the man HE had injured, but the man who had injured HIM, whose spirit was aimlessly and wantonly—for he had never attempted to get back his possessions in his lifetime, nor ever tried to communicate with the possessor—striking at him in the shadow. And it was THAT man, that pale, writhing, frightened wretch whom he had once mercifully helped! Yes, whose LIFE he had even saved that night from exposure and delirium tremens when he had given him the whiskey. And this life he had saved, only to have it set in motion a conspiracy to ruin him! Who knows that 'Lige had not purposely conceived what they had believed to be an attempt at suicide, only to cast suspicion of murder on HIM! From which it will be perceived that Harcourt's powers of moral reasoning had not improved in five years, and that even the impartiality he had just shown in his description of 'Lige to Grant had been swallowed up in this new sense of injury. The founder of Tasajara, whose cool business logic, unfailing foresight, and practical deductions were never at fault, was once more childishly adrift in his moral ethics.
And there was Clementina, of whose judgment Grant had spoken so persistently,—could she assist him? It was true, as he had said, he had never talked to her of his affairs. In his sometimes uneasy consciousness of her superiority he had shrunk from even revealing his anxieties, much less his actual secret, and from anything that might prejudice the lofty paternal attitude he had taken towards his daughters from the beginning of his good fortune. He was never quite sure if her acceptance of it was real; he was never entirely free from a certain jealousy that always mingled with his pride in her superior rectitude; and yet his feeling was distinct from the good-natured contempt he had for his wife's loyalty, the anger and suspicion that his son's opposition had provoked, and the half-affectionate toleration he had felt for Euphemia's waywardness. However he would sound Clementina without betraying himself.
He was anticipated by a slight step in the passage and the pushing open of his study door. The tall, graceful figure of the girl herself stood in the opening.
“They tell me Mr. Grant has been here. Does he stay to dinner?”
“No, he has an engagement at the hotel, but he will probably drop in later. Come in, Clemmy, I want to talk to you. Shut the door and sit down.”
She slipped in quietly, shut the door, took a seat on the sofa, softly smoothed down her gown, and turned her graceful head and serenely composed face towards him. Sitting thus she looked like some finely finished painting that decorated rather than belonged to the room,—not only distinctly alien to the flesh and blood relative before her, but to the house, and even the local, monotonous landscape beyond the window with the shining new shingles and chimneys that cut the new blue sky. These singular perfections seemed to increase in Harcourt's mind the exasperating sense of injury inflicted upon him by 'Lige's exposures. With a daughter so incomparably gifted,—a matchless creation that was enough in herself to ennoble that fortune which his own skill and genius had lifted from the muddy tules of Tasajara where this 'Lige had left it,—that SHE should be subjected to this annoyance seemed an infamy that Providence could not allow! What was his mere venial transgression to this exaggerated retribution?
“Clemmy, girl, I'm going to ask you a question. Listen, pet.” He had begun with a reminiscent tenderness of the epoch of her childhood, but meeting the unresponding maturity of her clear eyes he abandoned it. “You know, Clementina, I have never interfered in your affairs, nor tried to influence your friendships for anybody. Whatever people may have to say of me they can't say that! I've always trusted you, as I would myself, to choose your own associates; I have never regretted it, and I don't regret it now. But I'd like to know—I have reasons to-day for asking—how matters stand between you and Grant.”
The Parian head of Minerva on the bookcase above her did not offer the spectator a face less free from maidenly confusion than Clementina's at that moment. Her father had certainly expected none, but he was not prepared for the perfect coolness of her reply.
“Do you mean, have I ACCEPTED him?”
“No,—well—yes.”
“No, then! Is that what he wished to see you about? It was understood that he was not to allude again to the subject to any one.”
“He has not to ME. It was only my own idea. He had something very different to tell me. You may not know, Clementina,” he begun cautiously, “that I have been lately the subject of some anonymous slanders, and Grant has taken the trouble to track them down for me. It is a calumny that goes back as far as Sidon, and I may want your level head and good memory to help me to refute it.” He then repeated calmly and clearly, with no trace of the fury that had raged within him a moment before, the substance of Grant's revelation.
The young girl listened without apparent emotion. When he had finished she said quickly: “And what do you want me to recollect?”
The hardest part of Harcourt's task was coming. “Well, don't you remember that I told you the day the surveyors went away—that—I had bought this land of 'Lige Curtis some time before?”
“Yes, I remember your saying so, but”—
“But what?”
“I thought you only meant that to satisfy mother.”
Daniel Harcourt felt the blood settling round his heart, but he was constrained by an irresistible impulse to know the worst. “Well, what did YOU think it really was?”
“I only thought that 'Lige Curtis had simply let you have it, that's all.”
Harcourt breathed again. “But what for? Why should he?”
“Well—ON MY ACCOUNT.”
“On YOUR account! What in Heaven's name had YOU to do with it?”
“He loved me.” There was not the slightest trace of vanity, self-consciousness or coquetry in her quiet, fateful face, and for this very reason Harcourt knew that she was speaking the truth.
“Loved YOU!—you, Clementina!—my daughter! Did he ever TELL you so?”
“Not in words. He used to walk up and down on the road when I was at the back window or in the garden, and often hung about the bank of the creek for hours, like some animal. I don't think the others saw him, and when they did they thought it was Parmlee for Euphemia. Even Euphemia thought so too, and that was why she was so conceited and hard to Parmlee towards the end. She thought it was Parmlee that night when Grant and Rice came; but it was 'Lige Curtis who had been watching the window lights in the rain, and who must have gone off at last to speak to you in the store. I always let Phemie believe that it was Parmlee,—it seemed to please her.”
There was not the least tone of mischief or superiority, or even of patronage in her manner. It was as quiet and cruel as the fate that might have led 'Lige to his destruction. Even her father felt a slight thrill of awe as she paused. “Then he never really spoke to you?” he asked hurriedly.
“Only once. I was gathering swamp lilies all alone, a mile below the bend of the creek, and he came upon me suddenly. Perhaps it was that I didn't jump or start—I didn't see anything to jump or start at—that he said, 'You're not frightened at me, Miss Harcourt, like the other girls? You don't think I'm drunk or half mad—as they do?' I don't remember exactly what I said, but it meant that whether he was drunk or half mad or sober I didn't see any reason to be afraid of him. And then he told me that if I was fond of swamp lilies I might have all I wanted at his place, and for the matter of that the place too, as he was going away, for he couldn't stand the loneliness any longer. He said that he had nothing in common with the place and the people—no more than I had—and that was what he had always fancied in me. I told him that if he felt in that way about his place he ought to leave it, or sell it to some one who cared for it, and go away. That must have been in his mind when he offered it to you,—at least that's what I thought when you told us you had bought it. I didn't know but what he might have told you, but you didn't care to say it before mother.”
Mr. Harcourt sat gazing at her with breathless amazement. “And you—think that—'Lige Curtis—lov—liked you?”
“Yes, I think he did—and that he does now!”
“NOW! What do you mean? The man is dead!” said Harcourt starting.
“That's just what I don't believe.”
“Impossible! Think of what you are saying.”
“I never could quite understand or feel that he was dead when everybody said so, and now that I've heard this story I KNOW that he is living.”
“But why did he not make himself known in time to claim the property?”
“Because he did not care for it.”
“What did he care for, then?”
“Me, I suppose.”
“But this calumny is not like a man who loves you.”
“It is like a JEALOUS one.”
With an effort Harcourt threw off his bewildered incredulity and grasped the situation. He would have to contend with his enemy in the flesh and blood, but that flesh and blood would be very weak in the hands of the impassive girl beside him. His face lightened.
The same idea might have been in Clementina's mind when she spoke again, although her face had remained unchanged. “I do not see why YOU should bother yourself further about it,” she said. “It is only a matter between myself and him; you can leave it to me.”
“But if you are mistaken and he should not be living?”
“I am not mistaken. I am even certain now that I have seen him.”
“Seen him!”
“Yes,” said the girl with the first trace of animation in her face. “It was four or five months ago when we were visiting the Briones at Monterey. We had ridden out to the old Mission by moonlight. There were some Mexicans lounging around the posada, and one of them attracted my attention by the way he seemed to watch me, without revealing any more of his face than I could see between his serape and the black silk handkerchief that was tied around his head under his sombrero. But I knew he was an American—and his eyes were familiar. I believe it was he.”
“Why did you not speak of it before?”
The look of animation died out of the girl's face. “Why should I?” she said listlessly. “I did not know of these reports then. He was nothing more to us. You wouldn't have cared to see him again.” She rose, smoothed out her skirt and stood looking at her father. “There is one thing, of course, that you'll do at once.”
Her voice had changed so oddly that he said quickly: “What's that?”
“Call Grant off the scent. He'll only frighten or exasperate your game, and that's what you don't want.”
Her voice was as imperious as it had been previously listless. And it was the first time he had ever known her to use slang.
It seemed as startling as if it had fallen from the marble lips above him.
“But I've promised him that we should go together to my lawyer to-morrow, and begin a suit against the proprietors of the 'Clarion.'”
“Do nothing of the kind. Get rid of Grant's assistance in this matter; and see the 'Clarion' proprietor yourself. What sort of a man is he? Can you invite him to your house?”
“I have never seen him; I believe he lives at San Jose. He is a wealthy man and a large land owner there. You understand that after the first article appeared in his paper, and I knew that he had employed your brother—although Grant says that he had nothing to do with it and left Fletcher on account of it—I could have no intercourse with him. Even if I invited him he would not come.”
“He MUST come. Leave it to ME.” She stopped and resumed her former impassive manner. “I had something to say to you too, father. Mr. Shipley proposed to me the day we went to San Mateo.”
Her father's eyes lit with an eager sparkle. “Well,” he said quickly.
“I reminded him that I had known him only a few weeks, and that I wanted time to consider.”
“Consider! Why, Clemmy, he's one of the oldest Boston families, rich from his father and grandfather—rich when I was a shopkeeper and your mother”—
“I thought you liked Grant?” she said quietly.
“Yes, but if YOU have no choice nor feeling in the matter, why Shipley is far the better man. And if any of the scandal should come to his ears”—
“So much the better that the hesitation should come from me. But if you think it better, I can sit down here and write to him at once declining the offer.” She moved towards the desk.
“No! No! I did not mean that,” said Harcourt quickly. “I only thought that if he did hear anything it might be said that he had backed out.”
“His sister knows of his offer, and though she don't like it nor me, she will not deny the fact. By the way, you remember when she was lost that day on the road to San Mateo?”
“Yes.”
“Well, she was with your son, John Milton, all the time, and they lunched together at Crystal Spring. It came out quite accidentally through the hotel-keeper.”
Harcourt's brow darkened. “Did she know him before?”
“I can't say; but she does now.”
Harcourt's face was heavy with distrust. “Taking Shipley's offer and these scandals into consideration, I don't like the look of this, Clementina.”
“I do,” said the girl simply.
Harcourt gazed at her keenly and with the shadow of distrust still upon him. It seemed to be quite impossible, even with what he knew of her calmly cold nature, that she should be equally uninfluenced by Grant or Shipley. Had she some steadfast, lofty ideal, or perhaps some already absorbing passion of which he knew nothing? She was not a girl to betray it—they would only know it when it was too late. Could it be possible that there was still something between her and 'Lige that he knew nothing of? The thought struck a chill to his breast. She was walking towards the door, when he recalled himself with an effort.
“If you think it advisable to see Fletcher, you might run down to San Jose for a day or two with your mother, and call on the Ramirez. They may know him or somebody who does. Of course if YOU meet him and casually invite him it would be different.”
“It's a good idea,” she said quickly. “I'll do it, and speak to mother now.”
He was struck by the change in her face and voice; they had both nervously lightened, as oddly and distinctly as they had before seemed to grow suddenly harsh and aggressive. She passed out of the room with girlish brusqueness, leaving him alone with a new and vague fear in his consciousness.
A few hours later Clementina was standing before the window of the drawing-room that overlooked the outskirts of the town. The moonlight was flooding the vast bluish Tasajara levels with a faint lustre, as if the waters of the creek had once more returned to them. In the shadow of the curtain beside her Grant was facing her with anxious eyes.
“Then I must take this as your final answer, Clementina?”
“You must. And had I known of these calumnies before, had you been frank with me even the day we went to San Mateo, my answer would have been as final then, and you might have been spared any further suspense. I am not blaming you, Mr. Grant; I am willing to believe that you thought it best to conceal this from me,—even at that time when you had just pledged yourself to find out its truth or falsehood,—yet my answer would have been the same. So long as this stain rests on my father's name I shall never allow that name to be coupled with yours in marriage or engagement; nor will my pride or yours allow us to carry on a simple friendship after this. I thank you for your offer of assistance, but I cannot even accept that which might to others seem to allow some contingent claim. I would rather believe that when you proposed this inquiry and my father permitted it, you both knew that it put an end to any other relations between us.”
“But, Clementina, you are wrong, believe me! Say that I have been foolish, indiscreet, mad,—still the few who knew that I made these inquiries on your father's behalf know nothing of my hopes of YOU!”
“But I do, and that is enough for me.”
Even in the hopeless preoccupation of his passion he suddenly looked at her with something of his old critical scrutiny. But she stood there calm, concentrated, self-possessed and upright. Yes! it was possible that the pride of this Southwestern shopkeepers daughter was greater than his own.
“Then you banish me, Clementina?”
“It is we whom YOU have banished.”
“Good-night.”
“Good-by.”
He bent for an instant over her cold hand, and then passed out into the hall. She remained listening until the front door closed behind him. Then she ran swiftly through the hall and up the staircase, with an alacrity that seemed impossible to the stately goddess of a moment before. When she had reached her bedroom and closed the door, so exuberant still and so uncontrollable was her levity and action, that without going round the bed which stood before her in the centre of the room, she placed her two hands upon it and lightly vaulted sideways across it to reach the window. There she watched the figure of Grant crossing the moonlit square. Then turning back into the half-lit room, she ran to the small dressing-glass placed at an angle on a toilet table against the wall. With her palms grasping her knees she stooped down suddenly and contemplated the mirror. It showed what no one but Clementina had ever seen,—and she herself only at rare intervals,—the laughing eyes and soul of a self-satisfied, material-minded, ordinary country-girl!
But Mr. Lawrence Grant's character in certain circumstances would seem to have as startling and inexplicable contradictions as Clementina Harcourt's, and three days later he halted his horse at the entrance of Los Gatos Rancho. The Home of the Cats—so called from the catamounts which infested the locality—which had for over a century lazily basked before one of the hottest canyons in the Coast Range, had lately been stirred into some activity by the American, Don Diego Fletcher, who had bought it, put up a saw-mill, and deforested the canyon. Still there remained enough suggestion of a feline haunt about it to make Grant feel as if he had tracked hither some stealthy enemy, in spite of the peaceful intimation conveyed by the sign on a rough boarded shed at the wayside, that the “Los Gatos Land and Lumber Company” held their office there.
A cigarette-smoking peon lounged before the door. Yes; Don Diego was there, but as he had arrived from Santa Clara only last night and was going to Colonel Ramirez that afternoon, he was engaged. Unless the business was important—but the cool, determined manner of Grant, even more than his words, signified that it WAS important, and the servant led the way to Don Diego's presence.
There certainly was nothing in the appearance of this sylvan proprietor and newspaper capitalist to justify Grant's suspicion of a surreptitious foe. A handsome man scarcely older than himself, in spite of a wavy mass of perfectly white hair which contrasted singularly with his brown mustache and dark sunburned face. So disguising was the effect of these contradictions, that he not only looked unlike anybody else, but even his nationality seemed to be a matter of doubt. Only his eyes, light blue and intelligent, which had a singular expression of gentleness and worry, appeared individual to the man. His manner was cultivated and easy. He motioned his visitor courteously to a chair.
“I was referred to you,” said Grant, almost abruptly, “as the person responsible for a series of slanderous attacks against Mr. Daniel Harcourt in the 'Clarion,' of which paper I believe you are the proprietor. I was told that you declined to give the authority for your action, unless you were forced to by legal proceedings.”
Fletcher's sensitive blue eyes rested upon Grant's with an expression of constrained pain and pity. “I heard of your inquiries, Mr. Grant; you were making them on behalf of this Mr. Harcourt or Harkutt”—he made the distinction with intentional deliberation—“with a view, I believe, to some arbitration. The case was stated to you fairly, I think; I believe I have nothing to add to it.”
“That was your answer to the ambassador of Mr. Harcourt,” said Grant, coldly, “and as such I delivered it to him; but I am here to-day to speak on my own account.”
What could be seen of Mr. Fletcher's lips appeared to curl in an odd smile. “Indeed, I thought it was—or would be—all in the family.”
Grant's face grew more stern, and his gray eyes glittered. “You'll find my status in this matter so far independent that I don't propose, like Mr. Harcourt, either to begin a suit or to rest quietly under the calumny. Briefly, Mr. Fletcher, as you or your informant knows, I was the surveyor who revealed to Mr. Harcourt the value of the land to which he claimed a title from your man, this Elijah or 'Lige Curtis as you call him,”—he could not resist this imitation of his adversary's supercilious affectation of precise nomenclature,—“and it was upon my representation of its value as an investment that he began the improvements which have made him wealthy. If this title was fraudulently obtained, all the facts pertaining to it are sufficiently related to connect me with the conspiracy.”
“Are you not a little hasty in your presumption, Mr. Grant?” said Fletcher, with unfeigned surprise.
“That is for ME to judge, Mr. Fletcher,” returned Grant, haughtily.
“But the name of Professor Grant is known to all California as beyond the breath of calumny or suspicion.”
“It is because of that fact that I propose to keep it so.”
“And may I ask in what way you wish me to assist you in so doing?”
“By promptly and publicly retracting in the 'Clarion' every word of this slander against Harcourt.”
Fletcher looked steadfastly at the speaker. “And if I decline?”
“I think you have been long enough in California, Mr. Fletcher, to know the alternative expected of a gentleman,” said Grant, coldly.
Mr. Fletcher kept his gentle blue eyes—in which surprise still overbalanced their expression of pained concern—on Grant's face.
“But is not this more in the style of Colonel Starbottle than Professor Grant?” he asked, with a faint smile.
Grant rose instantly with a white face. “You will have a better opportunity of judging,” he said, “when Colonel Starbottle has the honor of waiting upon you from me. Meantime, I thank you for reminding me of the indiscretion into which my folly, in still believing that this thing could be settled amicably, has led me.”
He bowed coldly and withdrew. Nevertheless, as he mounted his horse and rode away, he felt his cheeks burning. Yet he had acted upon calm consideration; he knew that to the ordinary Californian experience there was nothing quixotic nor exaggerated in the attitude he had taken. Men had quarreled and fought on less grounds; he had even half convinced himself that he HAD been insulted, and that his own professional reputation demanded the withdrawal of the attack on Harcourt on purely business grounds; but he was not satisfied of the personal responsibility of Fletcher nor of his gratuitous malignity. Nor did the man look like a tool in the hands of some unscrupulous and hidden enemy. However, he had played his card. If he succeeded only in provoking a duel with Fletcher, he at least would divert the public attention from Harcourt to himself. He knew that his superior position would throw the lesser victim in the background. He would make the sacrifice; that was his duty as a gentleman, even if SHE would not care to accept it as an earnest of his unselfish love!
He had reached the point where the mountain track entered the Santa Clara turnpike when his attention was attracted by a handsome but old-fashioned carriage drawn by four white mules, which passed down the road before him and turned suddenly off into a private road. But it was not this picturesque gala equipage of some local Spanish grandee that brought a thrill to his nerves and a flash to his eye; it was the unmistakable, tall, elegant figure and handsome profile of Clementina, reclining in light gauzy wraps against the back seat! It was no fanciful resemblance, the outcome of his reverie,—there never was any one like her!—it WAS she herself! But what was she doing here?
A vaquero cantered from the cross road where the dust of the vehicle still hung. Grant hailed him. Ah! it was a fine carroza de cuatro mulas that he had just passed! Si, Senor, truly; it was of Don Jose Ramirez, who lived just under the hill. It was bringing company to the casa.
Ramirez! That was where Fletcher was going! Had Clementina known that he was one of Fletcher's friends? Might she not be exposed to unpleasantness, marked coolness, or even insult in that unexpected meeting? Ought she not to be warned or prepared for it? She had banished Grant from her presence until this stain was removed from her father's name, but could she blame him for trying to save her from contact with her father's slanderer? No! He turned his horse abruptly into the cross road and spurred forward in the direction of the casa.
It was quite visible now—a low-walled, quadrangular mass of whitewashed adobe lying like a drift on the green hillside. The carriage and four had far preceded him, and was already half up the winding road towards the house. Later he saw them reach the courtyard and disappear within. He would be quite in time to speak with her before she retired to change her dress. He would simply say that while making a professional visit to Los Gatos Land Company office he had become aware of Fletcher's connection with it, and accidentally of his intended visit to Ramirez. His chance meeting with the carriage on the highway had determined his course.
As he rode into the courtyard he observed that it was also approached by another road, evidently nearer Los Gatos, and probably the older and shorter communication between the two ranchos. The fact was significantly demonstrated a moment later. He had given his horse to a servant, sent in his card to Clementina, and had dropped listlessly on one of the benches of the gallery surrounding the patio, when a horseman rode briskly into the opposite gateway, and dismounted with a familiar air. A waiting peon who recognized him informed him that the Dona was engaged with a visitor, but that they were both returning to the gallery for chocolate in a moment. The stranger was the man he had left only an hour before—Don Diego Fletcher!
In an instant the idiotic fatuity of his position struck him fully. His only excuse for following Clementina had been to warn her of the coming of this man who had just entered, and who would now meet her as quickly as himself. For a brief moment the idea of quietly slipping out to the corral, mounting his horse again, and flying from the rancho, crossed his mind; but the thought that he would be running away from the man he had just challenged, and perhaps some new hostility that had sprung up in his heart against him, compelled him to remain. The eyes of both men met; Fletcher's in half-wondering annoyance, Grant's in ill-concealed antagonism. What they would have said is not known, for at that moment the voices of Clementina and Mrs. Ramirez were heard in the passage, and they both entered the gallery. The two men were standing together; it was impossible to see one without the other.
And yet Grant, whose eyes were instantly directed to Clementina, thought that she had noted neither. She remained for an instant standing in the doorway in the same self-possessed, coldly graceful pose he remembered she had taken on the platform at Tasajara. Her eyelids were slightly downcast, as if she had been arrested by some sudden thought or some shy maiden sensitiveness; in her hesitation Mrs. Ramirez passed impatiently before her.
“Mother of God!” said that lively lady, regarding the two speechless men, “is it an indiscretion we are making here—or are you dumb? You, Don Diego, are loud enough when you and Don Jose are together; at least introduce your friend.”
Grant quickly recovered himself. “I am afraid,” he said, coming forward, “unless Miss Harcourt does, that I am a mere trespasser in your house, Senora. I saw her pass in your carriage a few moments ago, and having a message for her I ventured to follow her here.”
“It is Mr. Grant, a friend of my father's,” said Clementina, smiling with equanimity, as if just awakening from a momentary abstraction, yet apparently unconscious of Grant's imploring eyes; “but the other gentleman I have not the pleasure of knowing.”
“Ah! Don Diego Fletcher, a countryman of yours; and yet I think he knows you not.”
Clementina's face betrayed no indication of the presence of her father's foe, and yet Grant knew that she must have recognized his name, as she looked towards Fletcher with perfect self-possession. He was too much engaged in watching her to take note of Fletcher's manifest disturbance, or the evident effort with which he at last bowed to her. That this unexpected double meeting with the daughter of the man he had wronged, and the man who had espoused the quarrel, should be confounding to him appeared only natural. But he was unprepared to understand the feverish alacrity with which he accepted Dona Maria's invitation to chocolate, or the equally animated way in which Clementina threw herself into her hostess's Spanish levity. He knew it was an awkward situation, that must be surmounted without a scene; he was quite prepared in the presence of Clementina to be civil to Fletcher; but it was odd that in this feverish exchange of courtesies and compliments HE, Grant, should feel the greater awkwardness and be the most ill at ease. He sat down and took his part in the conversation; he let it transpire for Clementina's benefit that he had been to Los Gatos only on business, yet there was no opportunity for even a significant glance, and he had the added embarrassment of seeing that she exhibited no surprise nor seemed to attach the least importance to his inopportune visit. In a miserable indecision he allowed himself to be carried away by the high-flown hospitality of his Spanish hostess, and consented to stay to an early dinner. It was part of the infelicity of circumstance that the voluble Dona Maria—electing him as the distinguished stranger above the resident Fletcher—monopolized him and attached him to her side. She would do the honors of her house; she must show him the ruins of the old Mission beside the corral; Don Diego and Clementina would join them presently in the garden. He cast a despairing glance at the placidly smiling Clementina, who was apparently equally indifferent to the evident constraint and assumed ease of the man beside her, and turned away with Mrs. Ramirez.
A silence fell upon the gallery so deep that the receding voices and footsteps of Grant and his hostess in the long passage were distinctly heard until they reached the end. Then Fletcher arose with an inarticulate exclamation. Clementina instantly put her finger to her lips, glanced around the gallery, extended her hand to him, and saying “Come,” half-led, half-dragged him into the passage. To the right she turned and pushed open the door of a small room that seemed a combination of boudoir and oratory, lit by a French window opening to the garden, and flanked by a large black and white crucifix with a prie Dieu beneath it. Closing the door behind them she turned and faced her companion. But it was no longer the face of the woman who had been sitting in the gallery; it was the face that had looked back at her from the mirror at Tasajara the night that Grant had left her—eager, flushed, material with commonplace excitement!
“'Lige Curtis,” she said.
“Yes,” he answered passionately, “Lige Curtis, whom you thought dead! 'Lige Curtis, whom you once pitied, condoled with and despised! 'Lige Curtis, whose lands and property have enriched you! 'Lige Curtis, who would have shared it with you freely at the time, but whom your father juggled and defrauded of it! 'Lige Curtis, branded by him as a drunken outcast and suicide! 'Lige Curtis”—
“Hush!” She clapped her little hand over his mouth with a quick but awkward schoolgirl gesture, inconceivable to any who had known her usual languid elegance of motion, and held it there. He struggled angrily, impatiently, reproachfully, and then, with a sudden characteristic weakness that seemed as much of a revelation as her once hoydenish manner, kissed it, when she let it drop. Then placing both her hands still girlishly on her slim waist and curtseying grotesquely before him, she said: “'Lige Curtis! Oh, yes! 'Lige Curtis, who swore to do everything for me! 'Lige Curtis, who promised to give up liquor for me,—who was to leave Tasajara for me! 'Lige Curtis, who was to reform, and keep his land as a nest-egg for us both in the future, and then who sold it—and himself—and me—to dad for a glass of whiskey! 'Lige Curtis, who disappeared, and then let us think he was dead, only that he might attack us out of the ambush of his grave!”
“Yes, but think what I have suffered all these years; not for the cursed land—you know I never cared for that—but for YOU,—you, Clementina,—YOU rich, admired by every one; idolized, held far above me,—ME, the forgotten outcast, the wretched suicide—and yet the man to whom you had once plighted your troth. Which of those greedy fortune-hunters whom my money—my life-blood as you might have thought it was—attracted to you, did you care to tell that you had ever slipped out of the little garden gate at Sidon to meet that outcast! Do you wonder that as the years passed and YOU were happy, I did not choose to be so forgotten? Do you wonder that when YOU shut the door on the past I managed to open it again—if only a little way—that its light might startle you?”
Yet she did not seem startled or disturbed, and remained only looking at him critically.
“You say that you have suffered,” she replied with a smile. “You don't look it! Your hair is white, but it is becoming to you, and you are a handsomer man, 'Lige Curtis, than you were when I first met you; you are finer,” she went on, still regarding him, “stronger and healthier than you were five years ago; you are rich and prosperous, you have everything to make you happy, but”—here she laughed a little, held out both her hands, taking his and holding his arms apart in a rustic, homely fashion—“but you are still the same old 'Lige Curtis! It was like you to go off and hide yourself in that idiotic way; it was like you to let the property slide in that stupid, unselfish fashion; it was like you to get real mad, and say all those mean, silly things to dad, that didn't hurt him—in your regular looney style; for rich or poor, drunk or sober, ragged or elegant, plain or handsome,—you're always the same 'Lige Curtis!”
In proportion as that material, practical, rustic self—which nobody but 'Lige Curtis had ever seen—came back to her, so in proportion the irresolute, wavering, weak and emotional vagabond of Sidon came out to meet it. He looked at her with a vague smile; his five years of childish resentment, albeit carried on the shoulders of a man mentally and morally her superior, melted away. He drew her towards him, yet at the same moment a quick suspicion returned.
“Well, and what are you doing here? Has this man who has followed you any right, any claim upon you?”
“None but what you in your folly have forced upon him! You have made him father's ally. I don't know why he came here. I only know why I did—to find YOU!”
“You suspected then?”
“I KNEW! Hush!”
The returning voices of Grant and of Mrs. Ramirez were heard in the courtyard. Clementina made a warning yet girlishly mirthful gesture, again caught his hand, drew him quickly to the French window, and slipped through it with him into the garden, where they were quickly lost in the shadows of a ceanothus hedge.
“They have probably met Don Jose in the orchard, and as he and Don Diego have business together, Dona Clementina has without doubt gone to her room and left them. For you are not very entertaining to the ladies to-day,—you two caballeros! You have much politics together, eh?—or you have discussed and disagreed, eh? I will look for the Senorita, and let you go, Don Distraido!”
It is to be feared that Grant's apologies and attempts to detain her were equally feeble,—as it seemed to him that this was the only chance he might have of seeing Clementina except in company with Fletcher. As Mrs. Ramirez left he lit a cigarette and listlessly walked up and down the gallery. But Clementina did not come, neither did his hostess return. A subdued step in the passage raised his hopes,—it was only the grizzled major domo, to show him his room that he might prepare for dinner.
He followed mechanically down the long passage to a second corridor. There was a chance that he might meet Clementina, but he reached his room without encountering any one. It was a large vaulted apartment with a single window, a deep embrasure in the thick wall that seemed to focus like a telescope some forgotten, sequestered part of the leafy garden. While washing his hands, gazing absently at the green vignette framed by the dark opening, his attention was drawn to a movement of the foliage, stirred apparently by the rapid passage of two half-hidden figures. The quick flash of a feminine skirt seemed to indicate the coy flight of some romping maid of the casa, and the pursuit and struggle of her vaquero swain. To a despairing lover even the spectacle of innocent, pastoral happiness in others is not apt to be soothing, and Grant was turning impatiently away when he suddenly stopped with a rigid face and quickly approached the window. In her struggles with the unseen Corydon, the clustering leaves seemed to have yielded at the same moment with the coy Chloris, and parting—disclosed a stolen kiss! Grant's hand lay like ice against the wall. For, disengaging Fletcher's arm from her waist and freeing her skirt from the foliage, it was the calm, passionless Clementina herself who stepped out, and moved pensively towards the casa.