II
THE young couple stood together in the dawn, the blue dawn of Montana. The sky was as cold and bright as polished silver, but the low soft masses of cloud were blue, the glittering snow on the mountain peaks was blue, the smooth snow fields on the slopes and in the valley were blue. Nor was it the blue of azure or of sapphire, but a deep lovely cool polaric blue, born in the inverted depths of Montana, and forever dissociated from art.
It was an extramundane scene, and it had drawn Gregory from his bed since childhood, but to Ida, brought up in a town, and in one whose horizons until a short while ago had always been obscured by the poisonous haze of smelters, and ores roasted in the open, it was “weird.” Novels had informed her that sunrises were pink, or, at the worst, grey. There was something mysterious in this cold blue dawn up in the snow fields, and she hated mystery. But as it appeared to charm Gregory, she played up to him when he “dragged” her out to look at it; and she endeavoured to do so this morning although her own ego was rampant.
Gregory drew her closer, for she still had the power to enthrall him at times. He understood the resources within her shallows as little as she understood his depths, but although her defects in education and natural equipment had long since appalled him, he was generally too busy to think about her, and too masculine to detect that she was playing a part. This morning, although he automatically responded to her blandishments, he was merely sensible of her presence, and his eyes, the long watchful eyes of the Indian, were concentrated upon the blue light that poured from the clouds down upon the glistening peaks. Ida knew that this meant he was getting ready to make an announcement of some sort, and longed to shake it out of him. Not daring to outrage his dignity so far, she drew the fur robe that enveloped them closer and rubbed hersoft hair against his chin. It was useless to ask him to deliver himself until he was “good and ready”, but the less direct method sometimes prevailed.
Suddenly he came out with it.
“I’ve made up my mind to go back to the School.”
“Back to school—are you loony?”
“The School of Mines, of course. I can enter the Junior Class where I left off; earlier in fact, as I had finished the first semester. Besides, I’ve been going over all the old ground since Oakley came.”
“Is that what’s in all them books.”
“Those, dear.”
“Those. Mining Engineer’s a lot sweller than rancher.”
“Please don’t use that word.”
“Lord, Greg, you’re as particular as if you’d been brought up in Frisco or Chicago, instead of on a ranch.”
He laughed outright and pinched her ear. “I use a good deal of slang myself—only, there are some words that irritate me—I can hardly explain. It doesn’t matter.”
“Greg,” she asked with sudden suspicion, “why are you goin’ in for a profession? Have you given up hopes of strikin’ it rich on this ranch?”
“Oh, I shall never relinquish that dream.” He spoke so lightly that even had she understood him better she could not have guessed that the words leapt from what he believed to be the deepest of his passions. “But what has that to do with it? If there is gold on the ranch I shall be more likely to discover it when I know a great deal more about geology than I do now, and better able to mine it cheaply after I have learned all I can of milling and metallurgy at the School. But that is not the point. There may be nothing here. I wish to graduate into a profession which not only attracts me more than any other, but in which the expert can always make a large income. Ranching doesn’t interest me, and with Oakley to——”
“What woke you up so sudden?”
“I have never been asleep.” But he turned away his head lest she see the light in his eyes. “Oakley gives me my chance to get out, that is all. And I am very glad for your sake——”
“Aw!” Her voice, ringing out with ecstasy, convertedthe native syllable into music. “It means we are goin’ to live in Butte!”
“Of course.”
“And I was so took—taken by surprise it never dawned on me till this minute. Now what do you know about that?”
“We shall have to be very quiet. I cannot get my degree until a year from June—a year and seven months from now. I shall study day and night, and work in the mines during the winter and summer vacations. I cannot take you anywhere.”
“Lord knows it can’t be worse’n this. I’ll have my friends to talk to and there’s always the movin’ picture shows. Lord, how I’d like to see one.”
“Well, you shall,” he said kindly. “I wrote to Mark some time ago and asked him to give the tenant of the cottage notice. As this is the third of the month it must be empty and ready for us.”
“My goodness gracious!” cried his wife with pardonable irritation, “but you are a grand one for handin’ out surprises! Most husbands tell their wives things as they go along, but you ruminate like a cow and hand over the cud when you’re good and ready. I’m sick of bein’ treated as if I was a child.”
“Please don’t look at it in that way. What is the use of talking about things until one is quite sure they can be accomplished?”
“That’s half the fun of bein’ married,” said Ida with one of her flashes of intuition.
“Is it?” Gregory turned this over in his mind, then, out of his own experience, rejected it as a truism. He could not think of any subject he would care to discuss with his wife; or any other woman. But he kissed her with an unusual sense of compunction. “Perhaps I liked the idea of surprising you,” he said untruthfully. “You will be glad to live in Butte once more?”
“You may bet your bottom dollar on that. When do we go?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Landssakes! Well, I’m dumb. And breakfast has to be got if Ihavehad a bomb exploded under me. That Chink was doin’ fine when I left, but the Lord knows——”
She walked toward the rear of the house, temper in theswing of her hips, her head tossed high. Although rejoicing at the prospect of living in town, she was both angry and vaguely alarmed, as she so often had been before, at the unimaginable reserves, the unsuspected mental activities, and the sudden strikings of this life-partner who should have done his thinking out loud.
“Lord knows,” thought Mrs. Compton, as she approached her kitchen, with secret intent to relieve her feelings by “lambasting” the Mongolian and leaving Oakley to shift for himself, “it’s like livin’ with that there Sphinx. I don’t s’pose I’ll ever get used to him, and maybe the time’ll come when I won’t want to.”