He roused from his preoccupations and brushed back the wing of hair from his brow. "I realized that I was living, had always lived on husks, and that was what caused the restless fever in my blood, my heart was always restless; and then I began to dream down there in the tropics, really dream at night of these mountains just as you see them here, and in the day time I thought of them and longed for them, as a man whose throat is dry with thirst longs for cool water. Then, presently, I began to have brief, fleeting visions of them by day. And gradually the longing for the hills became so intense that I started out in search of them. I traveled about a good bit, and then drifted here. The place suited me, so I stayed."
She looked at him puzzled and half-fearfully, wondering if he was quite sane. "And will you stay here always?" she asked.
"Oh, as to that, I can't say. Perhaps. I hope so. Life is full here."
"Full!" she interrupted him. "And life! You call this life?" She laughed in harsh scorn.
"Don't you?" He looked at her with those blue, clear eyes that seemed to see through her and around her and beyond her.
"I!" Her glance was full of resentful passion; tightly she closed her lips; but there was something about him which seemed to force her to reveal herself and, presently, she began again. "I am like a coyote with a broken paw. It goes off by itself and hides until it can limp around. But life, real life, is all out there." She threw out her hands as indicating the world beyond the mountains. "If you call this life, you've never lived."
He ignored this, smiling faintly.
"What is real life to you?" he asked.
So compelling was his manner, for no one could shock Seagreave and no one could force him to condemn, that she almost said, "To love and be loved." But she resisted her impulse to voice this. "Until a little while before I came here, life meant to dance. I know, though, what it is to get tired of the very things you think you love the most. After I've stayed a while in the desert, I've just got to see the lights of the city streets, to smell the stage, and to dance to the big audiences; but after a bit, the buildings and the people begin to crowd on me and push me and I feel as if I couldn't breathe, then I've just got to get back to the desert again."
"Dancing is your expression," he said. "All of life is love and expression." And now there was a falling note in his voice which her ear was quick to catch. Almost she cried:
"Love! And yet you live here alone!"
"Yes," he went on, "we must have both. They are as necessary to us as breath. Without them—" he stopped, evidently embarrassed, as if suddenly aware that he had been talking more to himself than to her and that in thus forgetting her, he had been more self-revealing than he would have wished.
She shook her head, plainly puzzled. "But you are young," she said, and stole another glance at him, adding a little shyly, "at least not very old, and I feel, I am sure that you too have a broken paw, but when that is well you will go back to your own country, to cities again. You couldn't stand it here always."
He looked at her, an enigmatic smile on his lips. "Couldn't I?" he said. Glancing again at her as he rose, he saw that she seemed weary, her lashes lay long on her pale cheek. "Oh," with a touch of compunction in his tone, "I have, as usual, talked far too much. You are tired and we must go. José," lifting his voice, "as soon as you finish that game."
"The Devil is indeed at your elbow," cried José, flinging down his cards, "and prompts all you say. We have just this moment finished a game and Gallito is the winner."
Gallito smiled with bleak geniality. "Has José been wise?" he asked, rising and replenishing the dying fire.
"Fairly so," Seagreave smiled, "as far as he knows how to be. He has been up to some of his antics, though. They are beginning to say that this hillside is haunted."
While Gallito talked to Seagreave and Mrs. Nitschkan and José argued over certain rules of the game they had been playing, Mrs. Thomas sidled up to Pearl and stood looking at her with the absorbed unconsciousness of an admiring child.
"I s'pose," she began, swaying back and forth bashfully and touching the pink bow at her throat, "that it does look kind of queer to any one that's so up on the styles as you are to see me wearing a pink bow at my neck and a crêpe veil down my back?"
Pearl looked up in wearied surprise. "It does seem queer," she said indifferently.
"'Course I know it ain't just citified," Mrs. Thomas hastened to affirm; "but the veil and the bow together's got a meaning that I think is real sweet." She waited a moment, almost pathetically anxious for Pearl to see the symbolism of her two incongruous adornments, but her listener was too genuinely bored and also too self-absorbed to make the attempt. "It's this," said Mrs. Thomas, determined to explain. "The pink bow kind o' shows that I'm in the world again and," bridling coquettishly, "open to offers, while this crêpe veil shows that I ain't forgot poor Seth in his grave and can afford to mourn for him right."
But Pearl had not waited to hear all of these explanations. Without a word to the rest of the parting guests, and with a mere inclination of the head toward Seagreave, she had slipped away.
Alone in her small, bare room, undressing by the light of a single candle, the brief interest and curiosity which Seagreave had aroused in her faded from her mind. For hours she lay sleepless upon her bed, listening to the rushing mountain stream not far from the cabin, its arrowy plunge and dash over the rocks softened by distance to a low, perpetual purr, and hearing the mountain wind sigh through the pines about the cabin: but not always did her great, dark eyes stare into the blackness; sometimes she buried her head in the pillow and moaned, and at last she wept, permitting herself the flood of tears that she had held in check all day. "Rudolf, Rudolf," was the name upon her lips.
Within a few days Hughie came up to Colina, and through the long, chilly evenings near the peaks the little, isolated group met in Gallito's cabin. It was understood in the village that Gallito did not care to have his seclusion invaded, and this unspoken desire was universally respected; indeed, it was not questioned. In the solitary places are many eccentrics; they have escaped the melting pot of the city, and in the freedom of the desert and the mountains have achieved an unfettered and unquestioned individuality.
Those who had business dealings with the old Spaniard knew that he was to be found in places more easy of access than his lonely cabin among the rocks and trees; at the mine, for instance, of which he was foreman, the Mont d'Or; or, on an occasional Friday evening, in the village saloon, where he mingled with the miners, engaging in the eternal and interminable discussions of local mining affairs. He also kept a horse in the village, a fiery, blooded creature, which he exercised every few days, taking long rides over the various mountain trails. He was universally respected, as his judgment of mines was known to be sound, and his ventures unusually lucky; but no one was ever rash enough to encroach upon the reserve which he invariably maintained.
So, with small fear of embarrassing interruptions, although Gallito saw that all prudence was observed and every precaution taken, he and José, Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas sat over their cards, while Hughie played upon the piano and Harry Seagreave listened, with his eyes closed, to the music. He sometimes brought Pearl a cluster of the exquisite wild flowers which now covered the mountains, but he rarely made any but the briefest attempts at conversation with her, and after the first evening she showed no disposition to have him do so.
Instead of rousing from the depression which had overfallen her, she seemed, for a time, to sink the more deeply into it. Silent, listless, almost sullen, she passed her days. There was but little incentive for her to go down into the village, and she took small interest in the miners' wives who dwelt there. For a time she was curious to see Mrs. Hanson, but, learning through Hughie that that lady lived up near her mine on a mountainside two miles out of the village, and only occasionally, and at irregular intervals, visited the camp, Pearl realized the difficulties in the way of catching a glimpse of her and contented herself with Bob Flick's description of her.
Her mother wrote to her about once a week, brief, ill-spelled letters, always with an ardent inclosure from Hanson, and Pearl would lie out on the hillside during the long summer days reading, and re-reading them, and at night she slept with them next her heart. For the first few months Hanson was content to write to her and to extract what comfort he could from her notes to her mother. These he invested with cryptic and hidden meanings endeavoring to find a veiled message for himself in every line. But presently, growing impatient, he began to beg her for a word, only a word, but sent directly from her to him; yet, although the summer had waned to autumn, she remained obdurate, her will and her pride still stronger than her love.
Sometimes in the evening Hugh would beg her to dance, but she always refused. The desire for that spontaneous and natural form of expression was gone from her; and once when Hugh had persisted in urging her, she had left the room, nor appeared again all evening, so that it became a custom not to mention her dancing to her.
"Gosh a'mighty!" cried Mrs. Nitschkan robustly, looking up from a book of flies over which she had been poring, "think of getting a man on the brain like that."
José, who had been putting away the supper dishes, assisted by Mrs. Thomas, who had regarded the opportunity as propitious for certain elephantine coquetries, stopped to regard the gypsy with that peering mixture of amusement and curiosity which she ever evoked in him.
"But, Nitschkan," he asked, "were you never crazy about a man?"
"Marthy Thomas knows more about such goin's on than me," she returned equably; "but since you ask me, I was crazy once about Jack, and another awful pretty girl had him. But that wasn't all." She slapped her knee in joyous and triumphant remembrance, and the cabin echoed with her laughter.
"Ah!" José hastily put away his last dish and sat cross-legged on the hearth at her feet, looking up into her face with impish interest. "How did you manage him or her?"
"You can't manage a her no more'n you can manage a cat," bluntly. "You can't make a cat useful, and you can't make it mind; but," significantly, "you can manage a dog and train him, too. I had to learn that girl that'd corraled Jack that a pretty face and ruffled petticoats may catch a man, but they can't always hold him."
"What can hold 'em?" interrupted Mrs. Thomas, sighing heavily. "Not always vittles, and cert'ny not a loving heart."
Mrs. Nitschkan snapped her book impatiently. "Now, Marthy, don't you stir me up with that talk of yours, like men was the only prize packages in life. I can't see what these home-body women love to fool 'emselves so for. You're just like my Celora, Marthy. 'Mommie,' she says to me once, 'I wonder when the right man'll come along and learn me to love him?' Well, I happened to be makin' a dog whip jus' when she spoke, and I says, 'Celora, if you give me much of that talk I'll give you a hidin', big as you are. You got your man all picked out right now, and you mean to marry him whether he thinks so or not, and he can't get away from you no more'n a cat can from a mouse.'"
"No more than I can from you," José sprang to his feet with light agility and, leaning forward, made as if about to imprint a kiss upon her forehead.
But he had reckoned without his host. Mrs. Nitschkan's arm shot out before he saw it, and he was sent staggering halfway across the room. "A poor, perishin' brother tried that on me once," she remarked casually. "It was in Willy Barker's drug store over to Mt. Tabor. Celora was with me—she was about four—and I just set her down on the counter and said, 'Now, Celora, set good and quiet and watch Mommie go for the masher real pretty.'"
"I don't see why you got to be so rough on the boys, Sadie," deplored Mrs. Thomas, rocking slowly back and forth in a large chair. "'Course we know they're devils and all, but if it wasn't for their goin's on, trying to snatch a kiss now and then, life would seem awful tame for us poor, patient women. And even the worst of 'em's better'n none at all. Look at me! I had the luck to get a cross-grained, cranky one, as you know. Poor Seth!" She drew a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes. "But you got to admit, Sadie, that even he was white enough to up and die before I got too old for other gentlemen to take notice of me."
"What'd you want 'em to take notice of you for?" asks Mrs. Nitschkan abstractedly, her mind on her flies.
"It's easy enough for you to talk that way," Mrs. Thomas spoke with some heat. "You got the what-you-may-callems—accomplishments—that gets their notice. You're apt to skin 'em at cards, you can easy out-shoot 'em, and there ain't a lady miner in the mountains that can pass off a salted property as cute as you."
"What's the use of livin' in a world of tenderfoots if you don't use 'em?" growled Mrs. Nitschkan.
"'Course. And don't think I'm blaming you, Sadie; I ain't." Mrs. Thomas spoke more gently. "All I'm sayin' is that you can't understand the women that's born feeling the need of a strong right arm to lean on, and has nothing but a nice complexion and a loving heart to offer. The game's a hard one for them, 'cause there're so many others in the field. It ain't always a complexion; sometimes it's a head of hair, or eyes, but whatever it is, competition's keen. I leave it to you, Mr. José, if a lady can say to a gentleman the first time she meets him, 'I got a dandy temper,' or 'I can bake a pie that'll coax the coyotes down from the hills.' No, you got to let the hair or complexion do its work first and sort o' insinuate the rest as acquaintance grows."
"There's a man comin' up here to-morrow, Marthy, but he won't know whether you got a strand of hair or a tooth in your head; he'll never see you."
"Maybe he can't help it—not if I stand right in his way," said Mrs. Thomas, with a coy glance from under her lashes at José.
"Oh, yes, he can," returned Mrs. Nitschkan. "No matter who's in the way he can't see but one person, and that's that sulky Pearl; for it's good old Bob Flick, one of the best ever."
Two or three times Bob Flick had come up and remained several days, and on these occasions Pearl had roused somewhat from her indifference to life. On his last visit, late in September, he had succeeded in persuading her to ride again, and had sent down to the desert for a horse for her. She would not admit at first that she enjoyed being in the saddle again, but to his unexpressed satisfaction it was obvious that she did.
The crystalline, amber air was like wine; the mountains were a mosaic of color; the trees burned red and yellow, glowing torches of autumn, and accentuating all their ephemeral and regal splendor; among them, yet never of them, were the green austere pines marching in their serried ranks, on, on up the hillsides to timber line.
One day, as Pearl and Flick rode among the hills, a flood of sunlight falling about them, crimson and yellow leaves blowing on the wind, she expressed, for the first time, an interest in the desert and a desire to see it again.
"I'll have to go back sometime, Bob, I suppose," she said, "if it's only to see Lolita."
"I nearly brought her up with me," he said. "I thought maybe she'd stand it all right for a day or two; then I got afraid she'd sicken right away in this rare air, and I didn't dare."
"I guess so," sighed Pearl; "but, goodness! I'd sure like to see her again. I'd most give anything to hear her say, 'mi jasmin, Pearl, mi corazon.'"
"We understand each other, you and me and Lolita," returned Flick. "We all got the South in us, I reckon that's why."
"Maybe," she answered. "Yes, I'd like to see Lolita and mother. She won't leave her chickens and melons and sweet potatoes and all long enough to come up here, and, oh, there's times when I feel like I'd most give my eyes to see the desert again; but I couldn't stand it yet, Bob, not yet."
A shade had fallen over her face as she spoke and, to divert her, he began to speak of José. "Doesn't he make you laugh?" he asked. "He keeps everybody else on the broad grin."
"Men," she said scornfully. "I think he works a charm on you that you all put yourselves in danger for a thing like that. Sometimes he makes me laugh—a little; but if I had my way I would waste no time in putting him in prison where he belongs. What is it you see in him?"
"I don't believe women do like José much," reflected Flick.
"Except Nitschkan," replied Pearl. "She says she's trying to reform him and save his soul; but it mostly consists in getting him to do all the odd jobs she can think of, and Mrs. Thomas is trying to flirt with him."
"I guess you don't like him, because you don't see him as he is," ruminated Bob Flick. "He's not afraid of anything; he'll take chances, just without thinking of them, that I don't believe another man on earth would. He's always good-natured and amusing, and look how he can cook, Pearl," turning in his saddle, "just think of that! Why, he could take a piece of sole leather and make it taste like venison."
But even this list of perfections failed to arouse any enthusiasm for José in Pearl, or to convince her that the proper place for him was not within the sheltering walls of a prison.
"Well, if you don't care much for José, how about Seagreave?" There was a touch of anxiety in his glance as he asked this question. The jealousy which he could never succeed in overcoming, and yet of which he was continually ashamed, bit like acid into his heart as he thought of Seagreave's fair youthfulness; the charm of his long, clear, blue eyes; the winning sweetness of his nature.
Pearl drew her brows together a little, her eyes gloomed through her long, silky, black lashes. "I don't like queer people," she said petulantly. "He always seems to be mooning about something, and most of the time he acts like you weren't on the earth." An expression of surprise and resentment grew upon her face and darkened it. Then, with a gesture of annoyance, she threw up her head, dismissing the subject from her mind. A vision of Hanson rose before her and her heart turned to the memory of his ruddy good looks, his gay, bold eyes, his magnetic vitality.
"Say, Bob," she began, a little hesitatingly, "does that Mrs. Hanson still live around here?"
He nodded. "I got a letter from her the other day. She wanted me to attend to a little mining business down in the desert. She's pretty shrewd in business, too."
"Why couldn't she attend to her own business?" asked Pearl sharply. "What's she bothering you, a stranger, for?"
"Because her father died not long ago and she inherited some property and she's got to go East to see about it. I shouldn't wonder if she's already started."
She repressed a sudden start and looked quickly at him, but he was gazing out over the ranges and did not see her, which, she reflected, was an excellent thing, considering the wild and daring idea which had flashed across her mind. If Hanson but knew that his wife had left Colina no power on earth could prevent him from immediately journeying thither. Should she mention the fact in a letter to her mother? She debated this for a day or two, the temptation to do so was almost overmastering, but her pride finally triumphed in the struggle, and she left the matter on the knees of the gods.
Yet, in the depths of her wild heart, she knew that he would come, that he must long have awaited just such an opportunity, and she had no doubt that he kept himself informed of the movements of the woman who bore his name. Her spirits rose in the contemplation of glorious moments when she should live to the full again, when she should feel herself to be as a quickened and soaring flame of passion and intrigue. And what an opportunity! Her father was down at the Mont d'Or all day. Hughie, of course, was about most of the time, but she would not meet Hanson in the cabin, but out in the golden October weather among the pines. Bob Flick was returning to the desert the next day, so she had nothing to fear from him.
Several days, almost a week, passed, and then a letter from Hanson, telling her of Mrs. Hanson's departure, and assuring her that he meant to come to Colina, that he would not stop to consider any risks he might be taking, and that he was equally indifferent to her possible prohibition. He was coming, coming on the morning train the next Thursday, and this was Saturday.
She drew a long breath and pressed the letter to her heart. She would never yield to him, never; not so long as that barrier to a marriage between himself and herself—Mrs. Hanson—remained a legal wall between them, but, oh! if she was to live, she must see him now and again, at long, long intervals; but nevertheless occasionally.
The listless melancholy of months fell from her, and those about her, noting the change, laid it to Bob Flick's influence and to the fact that she was almost continually in the saddle; also Hughie and Gallito congratulated themselves that she was speedily forgetting Hanson. Her whole demeanor had changed, she even condescended to banter José, and she took his jibes in good part; and in the evenings when José and Gallito, Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas, had sat down to the silence of their cards, and Hughie played softly on the piano in a dim corner, she talked to Seagreave; in fact, their conversations became more prolonged every evening.
One morning, a few days before Hanson arrived, she had chosen to stroll up the mountainside, instead of riding as usual. Absorbed in her glowing anticipations, she had walked almost above timber line, then, presently, just as she realized that she was growing tired, the trail had led her to an ideal and natural resting place, a little chamber of ease. It was an open space where the pine needles lay thick upon the ground, so thick that Pearl's feet sank deeply into them as she entered. All about it were gnarled and stunted pine trees, bent and twisted by the high mountain winds, until they appeared as strange, Japanese silhouettes against the deep, blue sky. It was delightfully warm here, where the sun fell so broadly, and Pearl threw herself down upon the pine needles. The wind sighed softly through the forest, barely penetrating her retreat, and finally, under the spell of the soft and dreamy atmosphere, she fell asleep. After a time she wakened, and slowly opening her eyes saw to her surprise that Seagreave was sitting a few feet away from her. He held a book in his hand, but he was not reading, neither was he looking at her, but out through a break in the trees at innumerable blue ranges, floating, unsubstantial as mist in a flood of sunshine.
She sat up, and he, hearing her move, turned quickly and met her eyes.
"I came here to read," he said, in smiling explanation. "I often come, and, seeing you here and asleep, I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind if I stayed and kept away the bears and mountain lions."
She was still a little dazed. "Why, why," rubbing her eyes, "I must have been asleep. It is so pleasant here."
He turned quickly. "You find it pleasant?" he said, "then the mountains must be beginning to exert their spell upon you."
"I don't know," she answered slowly; "I don't hate them like I used to; but I'll never really care for them. I love the desert."
"You must tell me what you find in the desert," he said. She looked out broodingly at the ranges, the strange sphynx look in her eyes, but she did not answer him. At last she withdrew her gaze from the hills and glanced rather contemptuously at the book in his hands. "Don't you ever work?" she asked abruptly. "You're a man."
"Sometimes I work down in the mines, if I want to," he replied carelessly; "but I rarely want to. Sometimes, too, I write a little."
"But don't you want to work all the time with your hands or your head, like other men do?" she persisted.
"No," he returned. "To what profit would it be?" There was just a trace of bitterness in his voice.
"But you are strong and a man," she spoke now with unveiled scorn. "You wouldn't be content always to sit up in a mountain cabin by the fire like an old woman."
"Wouldn't I?" he asked. "Why not?" The bitterness was more apparent now, and a shadow had fallen over his face. Pearl realized that, for the moment, at least, he had forgotten her presence, and in truth, his mind had traveled back over the years and he was living over again the experience which had made him a wanderer on the earth and finally a recluse in the lonely and isolated mountains.
It was a more or less conventional story. All events which penetrate deeply into human experience are. They are vital and living, because universal; therefore we call them conventional. Seagreave had been left an orphan at an early age, and as he inherited wealth and was born of a line of gentlemen and scholars who had given the world much of service in their day, his material environment offered him no obstacles to be overcome. There were no barriers between him and any normal desires and ambitions, nothing to excite his emulation with suggestions that there were forbidden and therefore infinitely desirable gardens in which he might wander a welcome guest. But life sets a premium on hard knocks. It is usually the bantling which is cast upon the rocks who wins most of the prizes, having acquired in a hard school powers of resistance and endurance.
Seagreave's pleasant experiences continued through youth into manhood. When quite young he became engaged to a charming girl about his own age whom his guardians considered eminently suitable. Among many friendships, he had one so congenial that he fancied no circumstance could arise which could strain or break this tie.
And then, on the very eve of his marriage, his sweetheart had eloped with this friend of his boyhood, and he had not only this wound of the heart to endure, but also the consciousness that he was pilloried as a blind fool by all of his acquaintances.
Consequently he had, in his first young bitterness and heartbreak, taken a sort of gloomy satisfaction in living remote from his fellow beings and burying himself in the wilds, ever strengthening his capacity to do without the ordered and cultivated life of which he had been a part, and which had seemed essential to his well-being; and he had no disillusionizing past experiences to teach him the philosophy that time assuages all griefs, and that it is the part of common sense to take life as you find it.
Gradually his new manner of living, of wandering whither he would without ties or responsibilities, became a habit to him. He lost interest in the world of achievement as well as in the world of manners, but so insidious was this change, this shifting of the point of view, that he had never fully realized it until now when, in some way, some indefinite, goading and not altogether pleasant way, Pearl was bringing a faint realization of his acquired habit of mind home to him.
As Pearl watched him and wondered what remembrance it was that clouded his face, her interest in him increased. "I wonder—" she said, and hesitated.
Her words recalled him to himself immediately; with a little gesture of impatience as if annoyed at his own weakness, he put from him these morbid memories of the past. "You wonder—what?" he asked.
She flushed slightly at the thought that he might think her guilty of an intrusive curiosity, but she could not stop now. She must know more. Her craving intelligence demanded some explanation. "José," she said doubtfully and almost involuntarily.
A smile of pure amusement rippled about his mouth. "Yes," he said, "José. What about him?"
Speech came readily enough to her now. "You know what José is," accusingly. "You know the big reward that is offered for him, and yet you keep him in your cabin and treat him almost like a brother."
"Quite like a brother," he said; "why not? Who would have the heart to put Pan in prison? Do you think shutting José up behind bars would make him any better? At any rate, he is safe to do no mischief here, and he is happy. Would you want us to give him up?"
"I!" She looked at him in surprise and shook her head. "But then we are different, my father and me. He likes bad company, and I guess I take after him. But you, they call you Saint Harry, you are respectable."
"Not I," he said earnestly; "you must not accuse me of such things. Look yonder at that long mountain trail, leading up to the peaks. There are mile-stones in it. So it is in life. When we have stopped trying to make people measure up to our standard we have passed one; when we have gone beyond forgiveness and learned that there is never anything to forgive we have passed another, and when we have ceased from all condemnation we have progressed a little farther."
She made no response to this. In that sunwarmed silence the wind whispered softly through the pines, a sound like the monotonous, musical murmur of distant seas. "But you will forget all that," she said suddenly. "You will go back to the world. I know."
He smiled invincibly. "How do you know?"
She tapped her breast lightly with her jewel-encrusted hand. "From myself. Oh, how I have hated life since I came here, but now I love it again, I want it." She threw wide her arms and smiled radiantly, but not at him, rather at the vision of life her imagination conjured. "I want to dance, dance, dance, I want to live."
"And you will dance for us here in the mountains before you go away?" he asked, with interest. "Good dancing is very rare and very beautiful. There are very few great dancers."
"Yes, only a few," she said briefly. He could not know that she was one of them, of course, but nevertheless it piqued her vanity that he did not divine it or take it for granted. She resolved then and there to show him how she could dance, and as she decided this, a subtle, wicked smile crept about her lips. Since he was so sure that he would never return to the world, the world should come to him.
"But you haven't said yet that you would dance for us," he said.
"Yes," the same smile still lingering in her eyes and on her lips, "yes, I will. The camp have sent half a dozen invitations for me to do so, through Hughie. They have a dance once a week in the town hall, don't they? When is the next one?"
"I think I heard Hughie say next Thursday night. He always helps out the orchestra when he is here, doesn't he?"
Next Thursday night! Her eyes widened. That was the evening of the day that Rudolf was coming. Perhaps—perhaps, he would stay over and see her, it was not much of a risk he would be taking in doing so. Her father would not go down to see her dance, he would prefer to sit over his cards with José, and no one else knew Hanson. Oh, what a prospect! She almost clapped her hands with joy.
The wind sent a shower of pine needles over them, and Seagreave looked up, scanning the sky with a keen glance. "It will soon be time for the snow to fly," he said.
She looked at him incredulously. "Why, it is mild as summer."
"Yes, but this is October, and October in the mountains. Perhaps in only a few days now the ground will all be covered with snow."
"I hope I shall be away before that time," shivering a little.
"But think what you will miss. Think how beautiful it will be; all still, just a great, white silence; the snow with its wonderful shadows, and sometimes, when the air is very clear, I seem to hear the chiming of great bells."
She shivered again and rose. "I don't believe I'd like it," she said. "I think it would frighten me."
He walked down the hill with her to Gallito's cabin, but on their way they spoke little. Her mind was full of Hanson's coming, and of the revelation of dancing which she meant to show him and, incidentally, Saint Harry. It was not until later in the day that she remembered how impersonal, according to her standards, her conversation with Seagreave had been. Not once, either by word or look had he told her that she was beautiful and to be desired. A new experience for her; never before had she encountered such an attitude in any man. It must be, therefore, that there was some other woman in his life; but where? Certainly not here in Colina or she would have heard of it, and he had been in the mountains two years without leaving them. Surely he, too, must have known unhappiness in love. At intervals during the day she built up various hypotheses explaining the circumstances of his grief, and she also let her imagination dwell upon the woman, picturing her appearance and wondering about her disposition.
That evening at supper she arranged with Hugh that she was to accept the standing invitation of the camp, and that she would dance for them the following Thursday evening, and with an entire return of enthusiasm talked music and different steps to him until José and Mrs. Thomas, rendered more expeditious even than usual by their interest in the topic, had cleared away all traces of the meal and moved the table back against the wall. Then Hugh began to play.
"Wait a minute," Pearl cried to him, "until I get my dancing slippers and mymanton de Manila." She vanished through the doorway leading to her room and reappeared presently, a fan in her hand and a gorgeous fringed, silken shawl thrown about her; it was white and embroidered in flowers of all colors. "Ready," she called over her shoulder to Hugh.
Then she also began, but not at once to dance; instead, she executed a series of postures; almost without apparent transition she melted from one pose to another of plastic grace, her body the mere, boneless, obedient servant of her directing will.
These she followed with some wonderfully rapid exercises. Sometimes she stood perfectly still and one saw only the marvelous play of her body muscles, plainly visible, as no corsets had ever fettered her unmatched lines. Again, holding the body motionless, she moved only the arms, now with a slow and alluring rhythm, and again with incredible rapidity, showing to the full the flexibility and liquidity of the wrist movements for which she was later to be so famous. Then holding the body and arms quite still she danced only with her legs, and then arms, legs, body married in a faultless rhythm, she whirled like a cyclone about the room.
Her father and José sat and smoked and watched her every movement with keen, critical eyes. Were they not Spaniards who had danced all through their childhood and youth, as naturally as they breathed? About Gallito's mouth played the bleak smile which in him betokened content, while José could barely wait for her to finish her preliminary exercises before he besought her to let him join her. Even Mrs. Nitschkan laid down some fishing tackle with which she was engrossed and Mrs. Thomas looked on admiringly and half jealously.
"Dios," cried José plaintively, "Hughie's music invites me, even if the Señorita does not."
Pearl smiled complaisantly upon him. "The Jota!" she said, and immediately he joined her, making no bad second. Together they danced until Seagreave came down from his cabin, and then, flushed and laughing, she flung herself into a chair and refused to go on, although he begged her to do so.
"Say, Sadie," breathed Mrs. Thomas, "don't you believe I could learn to do that?"
"No," returned her friend, looking up from an earnest contemplation of various hooks, "I don't believe that no woman that's been married and had children and sorrows and buried a husband and is as heavy as a hippopotamus, and stumbles and interferes with both feet like Mis' Evans's old horse, Whitey, can learn something where the trick of it is keepin' up in the air most of the time."
"You needn't hurt a person's feelings by being so harsh." Mrs. Thomas's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, jus' take in Mr. Seagreave," she whispered; "I haven't seen him look at a lady that way yet."
"Cert'ny not at you. He ain't seem' no miner's wives," returned Mrs. Nitschkan cruelly.
"Father," cried Pearl joyously to Gallito, "I have lost nothing. I am not even tired, nor stiff. If anything, I am better than ever. Isn't it so? No," as Seagreave still continued to urge José and her to dance, "no," she lifted her narrow, glittering eyes to his, all the old challenge in them again, the pale coffee stains beneath them had deepened, her cheeks held the flush of a crimson rose, "not until Thursday night, then I shall dance the desert for you, and not alone the desert," she flashed her man-compelling, provocative smile straight into his eyes, "I shall bring the world to you, and then you will find how tired you are of these old mountains."
He smiled at her serenely, remotely, as one of the high gods might have smiled upon a lovely, earthly Bacchante. What had the vain and fleeting world to offer him who had so long ignored it?
Then, while Hugh still continued to play, Seagreave followed her to a shadowy seat near a window, whither she had withdrawn to be out of the warmth of the fire, and together they sat there talking until the moon dropped behind the mountain.
José, having finished his game of cards with Gallito and the two women, who had now left the table and were examining Pearl'smanton de Manila, sent his twinkling, darting glance in their direction. "Caramba!" he cried softly, "but she has the sal Andaluz, she can dance! I have seen many, but not such another." And then he crossed his arms and bent his body over them and rocked back and forth in soundless and apparently inexhaustible mirth in which Gallito finally joined him.
"I don't know what you are laughing at, José," he said; "but it is very funny."
"I laugh that the Devil has chosen you as an instrument, my Francisco," he said.
"Because I give you shelter?" asked Gallito, lighting another cigarette.
"Because the Devil schemes always how he can lure Saint Harry from his ice peak. He has not succeeded with cards, nor with wine, nor even with me, for I have tried to tempt him to plan with me those little robberies which for amusement I dream of, here in these damnable solitudes. But before he was a saint he had a wild heart, had Harry. You have but to look at him to know that. Have you forgotten that he has not always lived in these mountains? Do you not recall that he was middle-weight champion of Cape Colony, that he was a scout all through the Boer war? That he also saw service in India and has certain decorations to show for it? Saint Harry! ha, ha, ha!
"The one thing he could not resist was any kind of a mad adventure, all the chances against him and all the hounds on top of him, and he pitting his wits against them and scheming to outwit them. A petticoat could never hold him. Oh, yes," in answer to Gallito's upraised brows, "there have been one or two, here and there, but they meant little to him, as any one might see. But, as you know and I know, Gallito, the Devil often wins by persistence; he never gives up. So, although Saint Harry's case is a puzzling one, the Devil is not discouraged. He looks about him and says, 'My friend, Gallito, my old and tried friend, has a daughter, beautiful as a flower, graceful as a fountain. I will bring her here and then Saint Harry will scramble off his ice peak fast enough.'"
"Your foolish wits run away with you," growled Gallito.
"My legs must run away with me now," said José, rising and stretching his arms and yawning. "But tell me first why was your daughter sad when she first came here?"
"Because she had fallen in love with a damned rascal," said Gallito bitterly, "after the manner of women."
"After the manner of women," José nodded, and whispered behind his hand, so that the two mountain ladies might not overhear him. "Believe it or not, many have loved me. But women like extremes, too; if they love rascals, they also adore saints. They see the saint standing there in his niche, so calm, so peaceful and composed, entirely forgetful of them, and this they cannot endure. Their brains are on fire; they spend their time scheming and planning how they can claw him down from his pedestal. They burn candles and pray to all the saints in Paradise to help them, and they offer hostages to the Devil, too. They do not really know the difference between devil and angel or between good and bad; but they cannot bear it that the saint is indifferent to them. That is something that drives them mad. Ah, it is a strong saint that can stand firm in his niche against their wiles."
"It is an experience that you will never suffer from, José."
"But who can say?" exclaimed José, and speaking with gravity. "Some day I shall devote myself to good works and to making my peace with the church, and who knows, I may yet be a saint. But one thing I am sure of, I shall never leave my niche for a woman."
"You know nothing, José."
"I know that I will never waste my cooking on a woman. I will enter a monastery of fat monks first and cook for them. They will appreciate it. But to return to Saint Harry and your daughter now—"
"Come," said Gallito harshly, pushing back his chair, "it is time you went home. The ladies," indicating Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas, who had been getting on their capes and hoods, "are waiting for you to escort them."
As the day drew near upon which Pearl expected to meet Hanson again all things seemed, as if by some special arrangement with the Fates, to accommodate themselves to her plans. She had intended to ask Seagreave for the use of his private parlor among the pines, intimating that she desired to retire thither to practice some new steps, and, lo! the night before, after discussing weather probabilities with her father and José, he had decided to spend the greater part of the day in the village laying in a full stock of winter provisions.
Hughie also would be in the village, making arrangements for the event of the evening and seeing that the piano was properly installed and tuned. Gallito would of course be at the Mont d'Or, and as for José, he had announced his intention of assisting Mrs. Thomas in the making of some delicate and elaborate cakes, difficult of composition and of which Pearl was especially fond, and also of constructing certain delicious pastries. No one could think of José as merely cooking; the results of his genius justified the use of such high-sounding words as "composing" or "constructing." Thus, his morning would be fully occupied.
Propitious Fates! Her pathway was smoothed before her; yet, alas! such is the perversity of the human mind, that as the morning dawned, as the minutes ticked themselves away on the clock, as the hour drew near when she should again meet Hanson, after all these months of separation, her spirit grew heavier instead of lighter. There was a return of listlessness and an indifference to his coming which constantly increased. She even felt indifferent to her own appearance.
At last, reluctantly, she threw a lace scarf about her head and, wrapping a long, crimson cloak about her, she left the cottage and took her way slowly up the hill.
As it was yet far too early for her rendezvous she turned aside from the main road and followed the narrow mountain trail which led to the cabin occupied by Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas. The gypsy, in her usual careless, almost masculine attire, stood in the door of her cabin gazing out at the mountains in all their mellow and triumphant glory, the evanescent glory of late autumn. A pick and fishing rod lay across the door sill and a lean, flea-bitten dog dozed at her feet. Her arms were akimbo and a pipe was thrust between her teeth.
Her quick ear caught the sound of Pearl's approach and suddenly her blue, twinkling gaze dropped from the hills to the trail which led to her door. Seeing who her visitor was, a smile of blended curiosity and welcome crossed her face. "Howdy, Pearl," she called jovially, "come and set a spell." She removed the pick and fishing rod and dragged the dog out of the way. Through the open doorway Mrs. Thomas and José might be seen in the room beyond, bending over a table, evidently deeply engrossed in the composition of some cakes.
"I can only stay a minute; I got a notion to walk this morning." There was a cool deviltry in the slanting gaze with which she surveyed the other woman.
"Seagreave, I'll bet," returned Mrs. Nitschkan frankly. "It ain't in either you or Marthy Thomas to let a man alone. What possesses you, anyway?"
Pearl continued to regard her with that subtle, burning, mocking look. "Your kind can never know," she taunted.
"Mebbe," said Mrs. Nitschkan laconically, "but you're different from Marthy. She's just mush. She'll be thinkin' now that she's cracked about José. If it wasn't him it would be your father, and if there wasn't no man up here at all, she'd hoist that crêpe veil on her head, stick a red or blue bow at her neck and go swingin' down to camp, tryin' to persuade herself an' me that all she went for was a package of tea or some bacon. But you're different, always a yellin' about bein' free and yet always a tryin' to get tangled up."
Again Pearl laughed wickedly. "You tramp woman! Why would you rather hunt bear or mountain lions than shoot squirrels? Because there's danger in it." She laughed mirthlessly. "I guess it's for the same reason that I got to hunt the biggest game there is—man, and he hunts me."
Mrs. Nitschkan relighted her pipe. "Bob Flick's your best bet," she remarked impersonally.
"Talk about guns and fishing rods and dogs, something you know about," said Pearl scornfully, touching the dozing dog lightly with her foot. He growled angrily, resenting the liberty.
"You better leave Flip alone," cautioned Mrs. Nitschkan; "he's liable to bite anybody but me. Always be kind to dumb animals, 'specially cross dogs. And, say, Pearl, I been running the cards this morning. It was such a dandy day that I didn't know whether I'd do some assessment work or spend the day fishin'; the cards decided in favor of fishin'. I had to get some light so's I could tell how to go ahead. How any one can get along without a pack of cards! It's sure a lamp to the feet. If you wait a minute I'll run 'em for you."
She vanished inside and returned immediately with a board and a well-worn pack of cards. These she shuffled and, after Pearl had cut them several times, she began to lay them out in neat rows on the board on her knee, uttering a strange, crooning sound the while and studying each card as it fell with the most absorbed interest.
"Um-mmm!" with a heavy sigh and shaking her head forebodingly. "You better go home, girl, as fast as you can and shut yourself up in the cabin all day. Did you ever see anything like that?" pointing to the cards. "Trouble, trouble, nothin' but trouble. If it ain't actual murder an' death, it's too near it to be any joke. Look how them spades turns up every whipstitch. How can folks doubt!"
But the cards of evil omen lying there on the board before had roused all of Pearl's inherent superstition and stirred her swift anger against Mrs. Nitschkan. "Parrot-croaker!" she exclaimed angrily, and followed this with a string of Spanish oaths and expletives. "Trouble is over for me."
Mrs. Nitschkan was on her feet in a minute. The board and the cards fell unheeded to the ground. Her small, quick eyes began to roll ominously and show red, and her relaxed figure became immediately tense and alert as that of a panther on guard.
"Trouble's just beginnin' for you," her voice was a mere guttural growl. "A little more sass from you, you double-j'inted jumpin'-jack dancer, and I'll jerk you to the edge of that cliff yonder and throw you down. I'm feelin' particularly good right now," rolling up her sleeves and showing the great knots of swelling muscles on her arms. "Get out of my way."
With one big sweep of her arm she brushed her companion aside as if she had been a fly; but with incredible rapidity Pearl recovered herself and sprang directly before her.
"Then get me out," she taunted, "try it, try it. I'd slip through your fingers like oil. It's no good to flash your over-sized man-muscles on me; I'm made of whip-cord and whalebone. Do you get that?"
Mrs. Nitschkan's courage sprang from a sense of trained and responsive muscles and of tremendous physical strength, but at the sound of that cool voice, those mocking, unwavering eyes, there swept over her an awe of the slighter woman's far higher courage. It was an almost superstitious fear and respect which chilled the hot blood of her passion, the instinctive obedience of the flesh to the indomitable spirit. Reluctantly, against her will and in spite of her anger, the fighting gipsy paid deference to the steel-like, unflinching quality of the Pearl, when, rising above her slender physique, she faced unafraid the brute strength which threatened her, and dominated the situation by sheer consciousness of power.
The gypsy, chilled and subdued, confused by forces she could not understand, fell back a step or two and Pearl seized this opportunity to slip away, calling a careless good-by over her shoulder.
But the depression which had touched her from the time she wakened now lay heavier on her spirit. Her mind reverted to the cards of ill omen and she shivered with a faint chill of apprehension. And as she walked on it seemed to her that the atmosphere was in tune with her mood.
The air was soft, and yet sharp enough to quicken the color in her cheeks, but still indefinably wistful. The song of the wind among the pines, that mountain wind which never ceases to blow, had a sort of sighing pensiveness in its falling cadences. The deep, blue sky dreamed over the russet tree tops and the yellow leaves filled the forest with their flying gold.
And the spirit of the year seemed to have entered into Pearl. She was as wistful as the day, as pensive as the sighing wind. She arrived early at her destination. The sun lay warm in her little bower of encircling pines and she sat down on a fallen log to await Hanson's coming. He could not take her by surprise for, through a little opening in the trees, she could see the trail, it was in plain view.
Sitting down then to wait, she rested her elbow on her knee and her chin in the palm of her hand. It seemed as if the power of anticipation were gone from her. She wondered dully at her own languor, not only of body, but of mind. In a few moments she would see again the man whom she had passionately loved, and in parting from whom she had not dreamed it to be within human possibility so to suffer, and yet, at the prospect of meeting him again, her heart throbbed not one beat faster. She could not even look forward to dancing that night with any excitement or pleasure. She wondered what Seagreave would think of her when he saw her; she would be a vision far more brilliant than any spirit of the autumn woods, and she would wear her emeralds again, the emeralds for which Bob Flick had squandered a fortune. She put up her hand and touched them where they hung about her neck, concealed under her gown, for she wore them night and day, never allowing them to leave her person. Good old Bob! Seagreave had said there were only a few great dancers. Well, she would show him. She could dance; no matter how critical he was, he would have to admit that. And then her heart seemed suddenly to run down with a queer, cold little thrill.
There was Hanson ascending the trail. He was only a few feet away, and even as she jumped to her feet he saw her and waved his hand. He paused a moment for breath and then hurried on.
"Pearl!" he cried, and caught her in his arms, covering her face with kisses and crushing her against his heart. It seemed hours to her, but it was really only a moment before she pushed him from her, slipped from his arms, and stood panting and flushed before him.
"Pearl, O Pearl!" he cried again, and would once more have caught her deftly to him, but again she slipped from him. "Sit down," she cried petulantly, motioning to the fallen log. "You're out of breath, you've had a long climb." She herself sat down and he followed her example, encircling her with his arms; a tiny frown showed itself in her forehead and she bent slightly forward as if to evade his clasp, folding her arms about her knees.
"Gee! You bet it was a climb," he said, wiping his brow and still breathing a little hard. "But I'd have climbed right on up to heaven if you'd been there waiting for me. Lord, Pearl! if I'd had to wait much longer to see you it would have finished me, I do believe. Oh, sweetheart, you're lovelier than ever, and you're not going to punish either of us any more, I can tell you that. You're coming down with me and we're going to live, Pearl, live, just as I told you we would, down there in the palms in the desert. Now I'm telling you again among the pines, and this time you're going to listen and come. I guess we've both of us pretty well found out that it's no use our trying to live apart any longer."
Her crimson cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and Hanson, holding her hand in his, had pushed up her sleeve and was kissing her arm, as he talked, up as far as her elbow and down again to the tips of her fingers. She did not even attempt to draw her hand away, she was still in that state of apathy, where all her senses seemed dulled; and so she let him babble on, murmuring his adoration and his rose-colored dreams of the future.
"By George!" he exclaimed, in sheer, sincere amazement. "To think of you, the Black Pearl, spending all these months up here in these dead old mountains without even a moving-picture show to look at. You got an awful will, girl."
She gazed with somber eyes beyond him. Life, did he say "life"? That was what she asked, what she demanded, life as glorious and as rich in color as a full-blown rose. And only a little while ago she had dreamed that she could find it with him, thatthatwas what he offered to her. She remembered the question that Harry Seagreave had asked her. "What does life mean to you?" Ah, since that first night in the mountains life seemed to have expanded into infinite horizons before her widening vision. She dreamed over them, forgetful for the moment of the man beside her, until he, turning in the full tide of his talk, pressed his lips ardently, passionately to hers.
Taken by surprise, she uttered one of her fluent Spanish oaths and, springing to her feet, stood with her body slightly bent forward, her hands on her hips, gazing at him with her narrow, gleaming eyes. Her apathy was gone, she was alive now to her finger tips.
He rose, too. "Honey, what is it?" he questioned dazedly. "What's got you now?"
"Don't touch me," she said tensely. "Don't dare to touch me."
He looked at her unbelievingly and then fell back a pace or two. "My Lord! What's the matter with you?" he cried.
"I don't know," she muttered wildly. Her eyes still measured him, his bold, obvious good looks, his ruddy self-complacency, his habitual and shallow geniality, the satisfied vanity of a mouth steadily becoming looser; the depiction of years of self-indulgence in the little veins on his highly colored cheeks; the sagging lines of his well-set-up figure, ever taking on more flesh.
So she saw him, not perhaps as he was, but in the light of her own harsh and unmodified criticism, and mercilessly she reflected upon him all the scorn she felt for herself. She did not consider or even remember that with what strength of affection he possessed he had loved her; that, after his constitution he had given her of his best, all he had to give, in fact; that for her he had more than once faced danger, and just to see her again was even now facing it, fearlessly.
He had grown to expect from her an infinite variety of moods, but something in her pose, her expression, frightened him now. "Honey, what are you driving at?" he asked, a little tremulously, and stretched out his hand to lay it on her shoulder.
But again an oath whipped from her lips, her glance darkened. She drew back from him with the horse-shoe frown showing plainly on her forehead.
He looked at her, his whole face broken up, his mouth trembling, something like tears in his eyes. "Why, Pearl," he faltered, "ain't you glad to see me? Why, here I been waiting all these damned, dreary months, never thinking of any one but you, never even looking at another woman, just dreaming of the moment when I could put my arms around you again and know that you loved me and were mine."
A hard and bitter smile showed on her mouth. "Yours! Loved you!" she cried. "My God! You!"
Her unmistakable, unconcealed scorn was like a dagger thrust in the heart, and that stab of pain stirred his anger and restored him to himself. His face went almost purple, his cold eyes blazed. "Say," he cried roughly, "what are you driving at, anyway? Come down to cases now." He caught her by the wrist. "What did you let me come up here for? Just to make a monkey of me? Have you been treasuring spite against me all these months, and is this your way of getting even?"
She dragged her hand away from him and stepped back. "I let you come, if you want to know it, because I thought I was in love with you. Lord, think of it!" she laughed drearily. "I haven't fooled you any worse than I have myself."
He rubbed his hand across his eyes. "It ain't true," he said loudly, positively, defiantly.
"Hush," she exclaimed, darting forward. "What was that?" There was a sound as if some one had trod the underbrush not many feet away. She listened intently a moment, a wild fear at her heart that Seagreave might have returned unexpectedly. It was probably some animal, for there was no further sound. "Oh," she cried, in involuntary relief, "it must have been José!"
A gleam came into his eyes, a light of triumph as at the remembrance of some potent weapon of which he had been carelessly forgetful. "And who is José?" he asked.
She lifted her startled gaze to his, the question recalled to her her own unthinking speech. "Oh, one of the miners," she said indifferently.
He knew her too well to fancy that he could trap her into any new admissions, and he had no wish to arouse her suspicions. Therefore he dropped the subject, especially as he felt fully answered.
He leaned against a tree and, drawing a cigar from his pocket, lighted it, although the hand with which he did so trembled. "I guess some explanations are in order between you and me," he said. "I guess it's about time that you began to get it into your head that you can't make a fool of me all the time. I'm ready and willing to admit that there was some excuse for you down in the desert. I made a bad break there, which I'm freely conceding was no way to treat a lady. But that don't explain or excuse the way you've treated me this morning," he laughed bitterly. "There's no way to explain it unless living here in the mountains has gone to your head or unless there's another man. Is there?" his eyes pierced her. "Is there?"
She looked back at him with a hard, inscrutable smile, but she did not answer.
Another man! He couldn't, wouldn't believe it. Why, it was only yesterday that they two had met and loved in the desert. Again he fell to pleading. "Oh, Pearl, be like what you were again. Don't stand off from me that way, honey. It ain't in you to be so cruel and hard. Come back to me, here in my arms. Have your spells; treat me like you please; but come back to me. Oh, honey, come."
She looked beyond him, not at him, and then ground a little heap of freshly fallen pine needles beneath her heel.
"What's the use?" she said curtly. "It's over. We can quit right here, Rudolf. I'm done with you, for good."
His outstretched arms fell by his side, his jaw set. "I guess that's right," he said viciously. "Any bigger fool than me could see that; and I'm not going to waste any more time crawling around on my hands and knees after you; I can tell you that. But you can't fool me on the other man proposition."
"I'm not trying to," she interjected cruelly.
"Who is he?" his voice was ragged and uneven. "Not Flick, I'll bet my hat. He's been your dog too long for you to fling him anything but a bone. You'll never tell me, though."
"Not I," she answered indifferently.
"Then I'll just satisfy myself—to-night."
She started and frowned. "You're not staying for that," harshly. "It's not safe."
"Oh, yes, I am staying for that, just to satisfy a little curiosity I've got, and I guess I'll find it safe enough. I guess you've been playing with kids so far in your career, Miss Pearl Gallito; but you'll find that the old man's not quite so easy disposed of as you think. I've got an idea that you'll be down on your knees trying to make terms with him before we're precisely 'quit' as you've just said."
"Bah!" she said. "Wind, wind. You can't frighten me with threats. Stay and watch me dance all you please. That's the only way you'll ever see me again—from the audience." Without any appearance of haste, she lifted her scarf from the pine branch on which she had thrown it and twisted it slowly about her head, then picking up her crimson cape from the ground, she shook the pine needles from it, wrapped it about her, and without another word to him, without even a look, took her way down the trail.
She did not believe that he meant what he said, she did not believe that he meant to stay and see her dance that evening. The thought that he would do so had annoyed her at first, but as she walked downward through the wine-like amber air, she realized that she did not particularly care. Her whole being seemed absorbed in the revelation which had come to her in the first moment of her meeting with Hanson—her love for Seagreave. In this new, exclusive emotion, the recent interview and all that had led up to it became to her a mere unpleasant episode, upon which her indifferent imagination refused to dwell. She wanted to be alone, that she might fully realize this stupendous change in her feelings and in her entire outlook upon life. As she thought upon it she saw that it was no sudden miracle, wrought in the twinkling of an eye, but an alteration of standards and emotion so gradual that she had not been aware of it.
Back in the cabin she luxuriated, exulted in the fact that she would be alone all day. She piled high the fire with logs, and threw herself in an easy chair. Thus she could dream undisturbed, could lie watching the leaping flames and vision for herself again that fair, regular, serene face, that tall, strong, slender figure. She counted the hours until she should see him again, until she should dance for him, for it was for him, him alone, that she would dance.
Thus she passed the greater part of the day, and even resented the intrusion upon her thoughts when her father returned a little earlier than usual from the mine.
"I got a telegram from Bob to-day," he said. "All that was in it was, 'Coming up to see Pearl dance to-night.'"
"What!" she cried, showing her dismay. "What is he doing that for?"
"What he says, I suppose," returned Gallito, "to see you dance."
She frowned vexedly, but said nothing.
Her father spoke again. "How are you going down? You will not walk with Bob and Hugh, Mrs. Nitschkan and Mrs. Thomas?"
"No," she answered carelessly, although a deeper crimson showed in her cheek. "Mr. Seagreave said last night that he would take me down in his cart."
Gallito nodded, apparently satisfied, and as José came in then to prepare supper, the matter was dropped.
As for Pearl, her vexation of the moment was gone; it could have no place in her mood of exaltation, and when, a few minutes later, she greeted Bob Flick, he thought that he had never seen her more gay. All through supper, too, her mood of gayety continued, but immediately after that meal she drew Flick aside.
"Bob, I want to tell you something," she said. "No use Hughie, nor Pop, nor any of the rest of them knowing anything about it," she hesitated a moment, "but Hanson came up to-day."
There was no change in his impassive face, only a leap of hard light in his eyes, and yet she knew that he was on guard in a moment. "Hanson?"
"Yes, and I saw him for a few moments," she lifted candid eyes to his, "and, honest, Bob, it's all over. I never expect to see him again, and I never want to."
He looked at her, as if trying to read her soul. "Say, Pearl, what is this," he asked, "straight?"
"It's what I'm telling you," she looked back at him, nodding emphatically, and then her face broke into a smile, her sweetest, her most alluring smile. "Say, Bob, I got to thank you for a good many things, not to speak of these," she touched the emeralds under her gown; "but the biggest thing you've ever done for me yet was to keep me from running away with Hanson."
Her sincerity was undoubted, and a flush of pleasure rose on his cheek, and a light came into his eyes which only she could bring there. He pressed her hands warmly, looking embarrassed and yet delighted. "You never said anything in all your life, Pearl, that ever pleased me like that."
She patted his arm lightly and caressingly, and smiled at him again, under her lashes. She couldn't help that with any man. "You're awful good to me, Bob; I guess you're the best and onliest friend I've got."
"I'm what you want me to be," he spoke a little sadly but very tenderly. "It'll never make any difference to me what you do or what you don't do; there'll never be any change in me."
She let her fingers lie in his clasp, but her glance was absent now, her thoughts had flown again to Seagreave. "Goodness!" she exclaimed, rousing suddenly and glancing at the clock, "I've got to make a hustle for it."
She was ready half an hour later when Seagreave stopped at the door. Hugh and Bob Flick had already gone, her father and José had settled themselves for the evening over the cards, and Pearl stood before the fire, a long, dark cloak covering her from head to foot and a black mantilla over her head. José's eyes were full of longing.
"Oh, that I might go, too," he cried. "The Black Pearl may dance, dance, after the spirit that is in her; may express her art, but I, although I grow mad to express mine, must stay mewed up in these mountains with nothing to do but cook and play cards and talk to a half saint and a stale, old sinner. If Nitschkan and the petite Thomas had not come, I should have died. Look at those!" he twinkled his long, delicate fingers in the air, "there is not such another pair of hands on a combination lock in all this world."
Seagreave and Gallito laughed, but paid no further heed to him, and Harry turned to Pearl with a pretense of disappointment.
"I thought I should see a butterfly," he said, "a butterfly that had flown up from the land of eternal summer, and you're only a chrysalis."
"It's too cold for butterflies up here," she laughed. "Wait until I get down to the warm hall." But although she returned his banter, she did not look at him, her eyes were downcast, and on the drive down the hill she scarcely spoke. Seagreave was one of those rare persons who respect another's mood of silence, and consequently he did not notice this new constraint which had overfallen her.
The hall, lighted with bull's-eye lanterns, was crowded with people, every one of the chairs taken and every inch of standing room occupied. There was no platform, but the space upon which Pearl was to dance was screened off by red curtains.
But even before she entered the little dressing booth prepared for her, she hastened to peep through the curtains, scanning the audience with an eager eye. Her face fell as she saw that Hanson, true to his promise, was there, and on one of the front seats, not far from Seagreave and Bob Flick, who were sitting together. His eyes were dull, his face flushed, and he lurched flaccidly in his chair; he had been drinking heavily all day.
He was wondering dully as he sat there if she would enter in the same indifferent manner that she had adopted the first night he had seen her down in the desert. Probably she would; it had been very effective.
But the time for conjecture was over. The curtains were drawn aside, and Hugh sat down at the piano and began to play a seductive, sensuous accompaniment. Then through a crimson curtain at the rear Pearl flashed in as if blown by the mountain wind. The chrysalis had cast aside its shell and this tropical butterfly had emerged. Her skirts were of yellow satin, and from a black bodice her beautiful bare shoulders rose half revealed and half concealed by her rose-wreathed, whitemanton de Manila. In her black, shining hair, just over one ear, was a bunch of scarlet, artificial blossoms.
She floated about the floor for a moment or two like a thistle-down blown hither and thither by the caprice of the wind, scarcely seeming to touch the ground, upborne by the music-tide. Throughout her career she was always at her best when she took those first few moments about the stage and waited for her inspiration.
Then she drifted nearer to Hughie and murmured, "The Tango." He changed his tempo immediately, and almost without a pause of transition she began that provocative measure—the dance of desire. Thrilling with the joy of expressing her love, her beautiful new love for Seagreave, through her art, she danced with a verve, an abandon, a more spontaneous impulse than she had ever shown before. The Tango! She made it a thing of alluring advances, of stinging repulses, of sudden, fascinating withdrawals and exquisite ardors.
When the applause had finally died down, the hall was still noisy with a babel of voices; those who could, moved about in the crowded space, and little groups formed and broke up. Bob Flick, speaking to this or that acquaintance, felt some one touch him lightly on the arm, and turned suddenly to see Hanson standing beside him.
"Hello, Flick," with a sort of swaggering bravado, "our old friend, the Black Pearl, is going some to-night, ain't she?"
"I don't know you," drawled Flick, the liquid Southern intonations of his voice softened until they were almost silky, "and," his hand shot back to his hip with an almost unbelievable rapidity, "I'll give you just three minutes to apologize for mentioning Miss Gallito's name, for speaking to me, and for being here at all."
Hanson's face had turned a sickly white, more with anger than fear. "Considering the argument you stand ready to offer," he said, "there's nothing to do but to apologize my humblest on all three counts. I had hoped that you'd remember me and be willing to introduce me to your friend." He turned a cynical and evil glance upon Seagreave, who was talking to some one a few feet away. "But since you won't, I'll go, just adding that you and your friend, there, are likely to meet me soon again."