David Elden smoked his after-dinner cigar in his bachelor quarters. The years had been good to the firm of Conward & Elden; good far beyond the wildness of their first dreams. The transaction of the section bought from the English absentee had been but the beginning of bigger and more daring adventures. That section was now considered close-in property, and lots which Conward & Elden had originally sold for two hundred dollars each had since changed hands at more than a thousand. The street railway ran far beyond it. Water mains, sewers, electric lights, graded streets and concrete sidewalks had sprawled for miles across the prairie. Conward, in that first wild prophecy of his, had spoken of a city of a quarter of a million people; already more lots had been sold than could be occupied by four times that population.
It had been a very marvellous development; an enthusiasm which had grown deeper and wilder until it swept along as an insane abandon, bearing in its current the last vestiges of conservatism and caution. For at last the old-timers, long alluded to as the "dead ones," had come in. For years they had held back, scoffing, predicting disaster; and while they held back venturesome youths had become millionaires. One can stand that only so long, and at last the old-timers were buying and selling and debauching with the others in the lust of easy money.
Dave had often asked himself where it all would end. He traced it from its beginning; from the day when he wrote his first "boost" story; from the hundred-dollar bill that Conward had placed in his hands. It was a simple course to trace; so simple now that he was amazed that only Conward and a few shrewd others had seen it at that time. It had begun with the prosperity of incoming money; the money of a little group of speculators and adventurers and the others who hung on their train. They had filled the few hotels and office buildings. Presently some one began to build a new hotel. Labour was scarce and dear; carpenters, masons, bricklayers, plumbers, plasterers, labourers, had to be brought in from the outside. There was no place for them to sleep; there was no place for them to eat; there were insufficient stores to supply their wants. More hotels and shops and stores and houses had to be built, and to build them more carpenters and masons and bricklayers and plumbers and plasterers and painters had to be brought from the outside. The thing grew upon itself. It was like a fire starting slowly in the still prairie grass, which by its own heat creates a breeze that in turn gives birth to a gale that whips it forth in uncontrollable fury. Houses went up, blocks of them, streets of them, miles of them, but they could not keep pace with the demand, for every builder of a house must have a roof to sleep under. And there were streets to build; streets to grade and fill and pave; ditches to dig and sidewalks to lay and wires to string. And more houses had to be built for the men who paved streets and dug ditches and laid sidewalks and strung wires. And more stores and more hotels and more churches and more schools and more places of amusement were needed. And the fire fed on its own fury and spread to lengths undreamed by those who first set the match to the dry grass.
The process of speculation was as easily defined. The first buyers were cautious; they looked over the vacant lots carefully; weighed their advantages and disadvantages; the prospect of the city growing this way or that. But scarcely had they bought when they sold again at a profit, and were seized with a quick regret that they had not bought more, or earlier. Soon the caution of the early transactions was forgotten in the rush for more lots which, almost immediately, could be re-sold at a profit. Judgment and discretion became handicaps in the race; the successful man was he who threw all such qualities to the winds. Fortunes were made; intrinsic values were lost sight of in the glare of great and sudden profits. Prices mounted up and up, and when calmer counsels held that they had reached their limits all such counsels were abashed by prices soaring higher still.
And the firm of Conward & Elden had profited not the least in these wild years of gain-getting. Their mahogany finished first floor quarters were the last word in office luxuriance. Conward's private room might with credit have housed a premier or a president. Its purpose was to be impressive, rather than to give any other service, as Conward spent little of his time therein. On Dave fell the responsibility of office management, and his room was fitted for efficiency rather than luxury. It commanded a view of the long general office where a battery of stenographers and clerks took care of the detail of the business of Conward & Elden. And Dave had established his ability as an office manager. His fairness, his fearlessness, his impartiality, his courtesy, his even temper—save on rare and excusable occasions—had won from the staff a loyalty which Conward, with all his abilities as a good mixer, could never have commanded.
He had prospered, of course. His statement to his banker ran into seven figures. For years he had not known the experience of being short of money for any personal purpose. Occasionally, at first, and again of late, the firm had found it necessary to resort to high finance. This was usually accomplished by getting a bank so deeply involved in their speculations that, in moments of emergency, it dared not desert them if it would. There are ways of doing that. And always the daring of Conward and the organization of Elden had justified themselves. Dave was still a young man, not yet in his thirties; he was rated a millionaire; he had health, comeliness, and personality; he commanded the respect of a wide circle of business men, and was regarded as one of the matrimonial prizes of the city; his name had been discussed for public office; he was a success.
And yet this night, as he sat in his comfortable rooms and watched the street lights come fluttering on as twilight silhouetted the great hills to the west, he was not so sure of his success. A gas fire burned in the grate, rippling in blue, sinuous waves, and radiating an agreeable warmth on the May evening air. Dave finished his cigar and stood by the window, where the street light now poured in, blending its pale effulgence with the blue radiance from the grate. He was a man to be admired. His frame a trifle stouter than when we last saw him, but still supple and firm; the set of the shoulders, the taper of the body to the waist, the keen but passive face, the poise of the whole figure was that of one who, tasting of the goodness of life, had not gormandized thereon. He was called a success, yet in the honesty of his own soul he feared the coin did not ring true. Conward had insisted more and more upon "weighing the coal." And Dave had concerned himself less and less with the measure. That was what worried him. He felt that the crude but honest conception of the square deal which was the one valuable heritage of his childhood was slipping away from him. He had little in common with Conward outside of their business relationship. He suspected the man vaguely, but had never found tangible ground for his suspicion. Dave did not drink, and those confidences peculiar to a state of semi-intoxication were denied him. He was afraid to drink, not with the fear of the craven, but with the fear of a man who knows his enemy's advantage. He had suffered in his own home, and he feared the enemy, and would make no truce. Neither was he seduced by the vices which the possession of wealth made easy to his hand. He counted more as a dream—a sort of supernalism out of the past—that last night and that last compact with Irene Hardy, but it had been anchorage for his soul on more than one dangerous sea, and he would not give it up. Some time, he supposed, he should take a wife, but until then that covenant, sealed by the moonlight to the approving murmur of the spruce trees, should stand as his one title of character against which nocaveatmight be registered.
He was turning this very matter over in his mind, and wondering what the end would be, when a knock came at the door.
"Come," he said, switching on the light… "Oh, it's you, Bert. I am honoured. Sit down."
The girl threw her coat over a chair and sank into another. Without speaking she extended her shapely feet to the fire, but when its soothing warmth had comforted her limbs she looked up and said,
"Adam sure put it over on us, didn't he?"
"Still nursing that grievance over your sex," laughed Dave. "I thought you would outgrow it."
"I don't blame him," continued the girl, ignoring his interruption. "I am just getting back from forty-seven teas. Gabble, gabble, gabble. I don't blame him. We deserve it."
"Then you have had nothing to eat?"
"Almost. Only insignificant indigestibles."
Dave pressed a button, and a Chinese boy (all male Chinese are boys) entered, bowing in that deference which is so potent to separate the white man from his silver. The white man glories in being salaamed, especially by an Oriental, who can grovel with a touch of art. And the Oriental has not been slow to capitalize his master's vanity.
"Bring something to eat. Go out for it, and be quick. For two."
"Ice cleam? Toast? Tea—"
"No! Something to eat! Soup, flied chicken, hot vegetables, dessert, everything."
"You've had your dinner, surely?" asked Bert.
"Such a dinner as a man eats alone," he answered. "Now for something real. You stick to the paper like the ink, don't you, Bert?"
"Can't leave it. I hate it—and I love it. It's my poison and my medicine. Most of all I hate the society twaddle. And, of course, that's what I have to do."
"And you write it up so gloriously," said Dave. "Enthusiasm in every line of it."
"You read it, then? I thought all men looked on the society page with contempt."
"They do. But they look on it just the same—long enough to see whether their names appear among those present."
"Or whose husband is out of town?"
"You're growing more cynical all the time."
"How can I help it, when I see both sides of the game? If I printed half what I know I'd have every lawyer in this city busy to-morrow—except those who skipped out over-night."
"You know it," Dave agreed. "But here is dinner." The boy wheeled a table between them, and there was a savoury smell of hot food.
"Arecherchérepast," screamed Bert, half through her soup, with a great burst of merriment. "Oh, I must tell you. You remember the Metfords? You used to shovel coal for them. I know you're no snob, or I wouldn't put it so brutally. Of course, they're rich. Sold the old stable-yard for a quarter of a million, or thereabouts, and are now living in style. Some style! When they have guests, as they nearly always have—there'll be parasites as long as there's easy money—old man Metford eats breakfast in evening dress. And she orders the chiffonier to take the guests down to thedepôtin their Packer. But one thing has gone to her heart. She didn't realize in time that it wasn't good form to be prolific. Now that she knows three is the limit she has sent the other six to the country. But that isn't what I started on. She called up this morning and gave me hell because I said yesterday that she had served arecherchérepast at some function they pulled off the other night. 'See here, young woman,' she says, 'I want you to understand there's none of thatrecherchéstuff on my table. Nothing short of champagne, every drop of it.' I just yelled."
"Why didn't you print a retraction?"
"I don't know."
"I do. It's because, Miss Roberta, beneath your cynicism and your assumption of masculinity, you are as sympathetic as a young mother. It would be mean to put over anything like that, and you just can't do it."
"Nonsense. You see what I print at times—"
"Bert," he said suddenly, "why don't you get married?"
"Who, me?" Then she laughed. "I guess I'm too sympathetic. It would be mean to put over anything like that on a man, and a girl wouldn't have me."
"Well, then, why don't you buy some real estate?" he continued, jocularly. "Every man should have some dissipation—something to make him forget his other troubles."
"A little late in the meal for that word, isn't it?"
He stared a moment, and then sprang to his feet. "I beg your pardon. What will you drink?"
"What you drink."
"But I drink coffee."
"So do I… I may be mannish, Dave, but I don't think I'm a fool. I can understand a man drinking, but not a woman. It's too dangerous.… But I'll smoke a cigarette.
"Now, as for real estate. The fact is, Ihaveinvested."
A look came into his face which she did not understand. "With whom?" he demanded, almost peremptorily.
"With Conward & Elden," she answered, and the roguishness of her voice suggested that her despised femininity lay not far from the surface. "Were you about to be jealous?"
"Why didn't you come to me?" She realized that he was in deep earnest.
"I did," she answered, candidly. "At least, I asked for you, but you were out of town, so Conward took me in hand, and I followed his advice."
"Do you trust Conward?" he demanded almost fiercely.
"Well, he's good enough to be your partner, isn't he?"
The thrust hurt more than she knew. He had his poise again.
"Real estate is the only subject I would trust him on," she continued. "I must say, Dave, that for a shrewd business man you are awfully dense about Conward."
He remained silent for a few moments. He decided not to follow her lead. He knew that if she had anything explicit to say about Conward she would say it when she felt the time to be opportune, and not until then. He returned to the matter of her speculation.
"How much did you invest?"
"Not much. Just what I had."
"You mean all your savings?"
"Why not? It's all right, isn't it?"
He had risen and was standing again by the window. The long line of lights stretched out until they became mere diamond points on the velvet bosom of the night. Motor cars sped noiselessly to and fro, save where, at the corner below, chauffeurs exercised their sirens. But neither the lights, nor the night, nor the movement and noises of the street had any part in the young man's consciousness.
"It's all right, isn't it?" she repeated.
"I'm afraid it isn't," he said at length, in a restrained voice. "I'm afraid it isn't."
"What do you mean?" she demanded. There was an accusation in her eyes that was hard to face.
"Bert," he continued, "did it ever occur to you that this thing must have an end—that we can't go on forever lifting ourselves by our own bootstraps? We have built a city here, a great and beautiful city, almost as a wizard might build it by magic over night. There was room for it here; there was occasion; there was justification. But there was neither occasion nor justification for turning miles and miles of prairie land into city lots—lots which in the nature of things cannot possibly, in your time or mine, be required for city purposes. These lots should be producing; wheat, oats, potatoes, cows, butter—that is what we must build our city on. We have been considering the effect rather than the cause. The cause is the country, the neglected country, and until it overtakes the city we must stand still, if we do not go back. Our prosperity has been built on borrowed money, and we have forgotten that borrowed money must, sometime, be repaid. Meanwhile, in the heart of the greatest agricultural country in the world, we bring our potatoes across the American continent and our butter across the Pacific ocean."
He had spoken with effort, as one who makes a bitter confession, yet tries to state the case fairly, without excuses and without violence.
"You mean that the boom is about to burst?" she said.
"Not exactly burst. It will not be so sudden as that. It will just ooze away, like a toy balloon pricked with a pin."
There was silence for some minutes. When she spoke at length it was with a tinge of bitterness.
"So you are unloading?"
"The firm is. I beg you, Bert, to believe that if I had known your intention I would have tried to dissuade you. I would have advised you to keep your money in the bank until after the air cleared. Three per cent. is small, but it is better than tax bills on unsalable property."
"Why me particularly? I am only one of the great public. Why don't you give your conclusions to the world? When you were convinced that a period of inflation was about to occur you did not hesitate to say so. If I remember you usedThe Callfor that purpose. Now that you see the reaction setting in, doesn't honesty suggest what your course should be?"
She had risen, and she, too, looked with unseeing eyes upon the busy street. There was reproach in her voice, Dave thought, rather than bitterness.
He spread his hands. "What's the use? The harm is done. To predict a collapse would be to precipitate a panic. It is as though we were passengers on a boat at sea. You and I know the boat is sinking, but the other passengers don't. They are making merry with champagne and motor cars—if you can accept that figure—and revelry and easy money. Why spoil their remaining few hours by telling them they are headed for the bottom?… Besides, they are not deserving of sympathy, after all. They are in the game because they wanted to make money without earning it. Gamblers, every one of them. And the man or woman who expects to get wealth without giving value shouldn't whine if, by a turn of fate, he gives value without getting wealth."
After a moment she placed her fingers on his arm. "Forgive me, Dave," she said. "I didn't mean to whine."
"You didn't whine," he returned, almost fiercely. "It's not in you. You are too good a sport. But there will be lots of whining in the coming months." Man-like it did not occur to Dave that in that moment the girl had bid good-bye to her savings of a dozen years, and had merely looked up and said, "Forgive me, Dave, I didn't mean to whine." When he thought of it, long afterward, he had a sudden conviction that if he had realized then just how much of a brick she was he would have proposed to her on the spot… And she would have laughed, and said, "Now, Dave, don't spoil our fun with anything like that."
What she did do was to let her hand creep up his arm until she could tap his cheek with her second finger. "Is this all the entertainment you can think of to-night?" she bantered.
He glanced at his watch. "It's late for a theatre," he said, "but we can ride. Which do you say—auto or horse-back?"
"I can't go horse-back in these clothes, and I don't want to change."
Dave pressed a button, and the omnipresent Chinese "boy" stood before him. "My car," he said. "The two-passenger car. I shall not want a driver." Then, continuing to Miss Morrison, "You will need something more than that coat. Let me see. My smoking jacket should fit."
In a few minutes they were threading their way through the street traffic in Dave's machine. Whatever had been his forecast of impending disaster, the streets held little hint of it. They were congested with traffic and building material. Although it was late at night the imperious clamour of electric rivetters rattled down from steel structures on every hand. Office blocks, with their rental space all contracted months in advance, were being rushed to completion by the aid of arc lights and double shifts. But presently the traffic thinned, and the car hummed through long residential avenues of comfortable homes. From a thousand unmasked windows came the glow of light; here and there were the strains of music. On and on they sped, until the city streets and the city lights fell behind, and the car was swinging along a fine country road, through a land marked with streams and bridges, and blocked out with fragrant bluffs of young poplars.
At last, after an hour's steady driving in a delight of motion too keen for conversation, they pulled up on the brow of a hill. A soft breeze from the south-west, sensuous with the smell of spruce and balm-o'-gilead, pressed, cool and gentle, against their faces, and far to the south-east some settler's burning straw pile lay like an orange-red coal on the lips of the prairie, from which she blew an incense of ruddy gold and ochre, fan-shaped against the heavens. Behind them, to the north, far-away city lights danced and sparkled in the lap of the foot-hills, like diamonds strewn by some mighty and profligate Croesus. Dave switched off his lights, the better to appreciate the majesty of the night, and in the silence came the low murmur of water. There were no words. They sat and breathed it.
Suddenly, from a sharp bend in the road, flashed the lights of an approaching car. Dave was able to switch his own lights on again only in time to avoid a collision. The on-coming car lurched and passed by furiously, but not before Dave had recognized Conward as the driver. Back on its trail of dust floated the ribald notes of half-intoxicated women.
"Close enough," said Dave, when the dust had settled. "Well, let us jog back home."
They took the return trip leisurely, drinking in the glories of the night, and allowing time for the play of conversation. Bert Morrison was a good conversationalist. Her points of interest were almost infinite. And they were back among the street lights before they knew.
"Oh, we are nearly home," she exclaimed. "And, honest, Dave, I wanted to ask you something. Why don't you get married?"
"I guess I'm too sympathetic," he answered, after a moment's pause. "And it wouldn't be fair—"
"Oh, can that. It's been warmed over once already. Really, though, why don't you?"
"Why should I?"
"Why shouldn't you? It's natural. And you know you can't go on always just putting it off. It leaves your life empty. To-night, when I asked you if you had had dinner, you said, 'Such a meal as a man eats alone.' That betrays the emptiness."
"I suppose it does. But I don't know many girls. I don't know any girl very well, except you, and you wouldn't have me."
"No, I wouldn't," she answered frankly. "I like you too well. But you know other girls, and you could get to know more if you wanted to. There's Edith Duncan, for instance."
"Edith is a fine girl. The Duncans are wonderful people. I owe to them almost everything. But as for marrying Edith—"
"Why not?"
"I don't know. I never thought of it that way. She's a fine girl."
"None better," said Bert, with decision. "Dave, I'm not much on orthodox religion, as you know, but that girl's got something on me. She has a voice that would make her famous on the stage, but she uses it all the time, as she says, 'in the service of the King!' I think she's narrow on that point, but I know she's sincere. Edith has had a great sorrow, and it makes her nobility stand out, pure and wonderful, like a white gem in a black setting. It seems to be the law that one must rub shoulders with sorrow before he really begins to live. And any afternoon you can find her down in the children's ward, singing with that wonderful voice to the little sick sufferers."
"I know about her sorrow," said Dave, as though confessing a profound secret. "She told me about her little brother being killed."
It sprang to Bert's lips to say, "Oh, what's the use?" but she checked herself. They were at the door of her boarding-house. As he helped her to the sidewalk Dave stood for a moment with her hand in his. He had long liked Bert Morrison, and to-night he was powerfully drawn toward her. He knew—what she would have most strenuously denied—that her masculinity was a sham. Her defiance of convention—rambling like a fellow bachelor into his apartments—her occasional profanity and occasional cigarette—these were but the cloak from which her own deep womanhood was forever peering forth. He felt impelled to kiss her. He wondered if she would be angry; if such a familiarity would obstruct their growing friendship. He felt sure she would not be angry, but she would probably think him foolish. And man cannot endure being thought foolish by woman.
"Oh, I almost forgot," she said as they parted, as though she really had forgotten. "I was at a reception to-day when a beautiful woman asked for you. Asked me if I had ever heard of Mr. David Elden.
"'What, Dave Elden, the millionaire?' I said. 'Everybody knows him. He's the beau of the town, or could be, if he wanted to.' Oh, I gave you a good name, Dave."
"Thanks, Bert. That was decent. Who was she?"
"She said her name was Irene Hardy."
Upon the return of Irene Hardy to the East it had slowly become apparent to her mother that things were not as they once had been. There were various vague stirrings of uneasiness, but perhaps the most alarming manifestation was the strange silence in which the girl enveloped herself. It seemed as though she had left part of her nature behind—had outgrown it, perhaps—and had created about herself an atmosphere of reserve foreign to her earlier life. It seemed as though the loneliness of the great plains had settled upon her. The old virility had been sobered; the gaiety of her girlhood had ripened into a poise more disturbing to Mrs. Hardy than any conventional excess could have been. She sought her own company; she tolerated social engagements in which she had previously found delight. And, most sinister of all, she showed no disposition to encourage the attentions which were ready enough in the offering.
"Whatever has come over Irene?" said Mrs. Hardy to the doctor one evening when their daughter had been particularly indifferent to a theatre invitation. "She hasn't been the same since she came home. I should not have let her go west alone."
The doctor looked up mildly from his paper. It was the custom of the doctor to look up mildly when Mrs. Hardy made a statement demanding some form of recognition. From the wide initiation into domestic affairs which his profession had given him, Dr. Hardy had long since ceased to look for the absolute in woman. He had never looked for it in man. He realized that in Mrs. Hardy he did not possess a perfect mate, but he was equally convinced that in no other woman would he have found a perfect mate, and he accepted his lot with the philosophy of his sixty years. If Mrs. Hardy, in some respects, failed to measure up to his standard of the ideal, he found it true nevertheless that she had many admirable qualities. Granting that in his matrimonial adventure he might possibly have done somewhat better, fairness compelled the admission that he might also have done very much worse. And being, as has been hinted, something of a philosopher, he had sought, whenever possible, to harmonize his life with hers; and when that was impossible, at least to keep what pressure he might upon the soft pedal. So instead of reminding his wife that Irene had not been alone when she went west he remarked, very mildly, that the girl was growing older.
Mrs. Hardy found in this remark occasion to lay down the book she had been holding, and to sit upright in a rigidity of intense disapproval. Dr. Hardy was aware that this was entirely a theatrical attitude, assumed for the purpose of imposing upon him a proper humility. He had experienced it many, many times. And he knew that his statement, notwithstanding its obviousness, was about to be challenged.
"Dr. Hardy," said his wife, after the lapse of an appropriate period, "do you consider that an intelligent remark?"
"It has the advantage of truthfulness," returned the doctor, complacently. "It is susceptible of demonstration."
"I should think this is a matter of sufficient interest to the family to be discussed seriously," retorted Mrs. Hardy, who had an unfortunate habit of becoming exasperated by her husband's good humour. She had none of his philosophy, and she mistook his even temper for indifference. "Irene is our only child, and before your very eyes you see her—you see her—" Mrs. Hardy's fears were too nebulous to enable her to complete the sentence.
"Yes, I see her," the doctor admitted. "That is, I did see her at dinner. There is nothing alarming about that." Then, relenting, "But, seriously, what reason have you for uneasiness about the child?"
"Reason enough. She behaves so strangely. Do you know, I begin—I really do begin to suspect that she's in love."
It was Dr. Hardy's turn to sit upright. "Nonsense," he said. "Why should she be in love?" It is the unfortunate limitation of the philosopher that he so often leaves irrational behaviour out of the reckoning. "She is only a child."
"She will be eighteen presently. And why shouldn't she be in love? And the question is—who? That is for you to answer. Whom did she meet?"
"If you would find a Hamlet at the root of this melancholy you must ask our Ophelia. She met no one with me. My accident left me to enjoy my holiday as best I could at a ranch deep in the foothills, and Reenie stayed with me there. There was no one else—"
"No one? No ranch men, cowboys,—cow punchers—I think I have heard,"—with nice disdain.
"No. Only young Elden—"
"Only? Who is this young Elden?"
"But he is just a boy. Just the son of the old rancher of whom I have told you."
"Exactly. And Irene is just a girl. Dr. Hardy, you are all very well with your fevers and your chills, but you can't diagnose a love case worth a cent. An epidemic would break out under your very eyes and you blissfully unconscious. What about this young Elden? Did Irene see much of him?"
The doctor spread his hands. "Do you realize that there were four of us at that ranch—four, only, and no one else for miles? How could she help seeing him?",
"And you permitted it?"
"I was on my back with a broken leg. We were guests at their home. They were good Samaritans to us. I couldn't chaperon her. And besides, they don't do things that way in that country. You don't understand. It's altogether different."
"Andrew," said Mrs. Hardy, leaning forward, and the word was ominous, for she used his Christian name only in moments of crisis,—"was Irene ever, with this young man—alone?"
The doctor arose to his feet and trod heavily upon the rich carpetings. "I told you you don't understand," he protested. "The West is not the East. Everything is different—"
"I suppose human nature is different," she interrupted, meaningly. Then her head fell upon the table and her hands went up about her hair. It had been brown hair once, but was now thin and streaked with grey. "Oh, Andrew," she wept. "We are ruined. That we should ever have come to this!"
It was now Dr. Hardy's turn to be exasperated. There was one thing his philosophy could not endure. That was a person who was not, and would not be, philosophical. Mrs. Hardy was not, and would not be, philosophical. She was an absolutist. With Mrs. Hardy things were right or things were wrong. Moreover, that which was done according to rule was right, and that which was not done according to rule was wrong. It was apparent that the acquaintanceship of Irene and Dave Elden had not been according to rule.
"This is all nonsense," said the doctor, impatiently. "There is nothing to it, anyway. The girl had to have some company. What if they did ride together? What—"
"They rode together? Alone?"
"They had their horses along," said the doctor, whose impatience had made way for sarcasm.
"Through the forest, I suppose," said Mrs. Hardy, with an air of one whose humiliation is complete.
"Oh, yes, through the forests, across the foothills, up the canyons, hours of it, days of it, weeks of it—"
"Stop! You are mocking me. In this hour of shame you are making jests. Call Irene."
The girl was summoned. Her fine face had lost some of its brownness, and the eyes seemed deeper and slower, but she was still a vision of grace and beauty as she stood in response to their call framed in the curtains of an archway. Her quick sense caught the tense atmosphere, and she came forward with parted lips and extended fingers. There was the glint of light on her white teeth. "Yes?" she said. "What is wrong? Can I help?"
"Your father has confessed," said Mrs. Hardy, trying hard to speak with judicial calm. "Now tell us about your relations with this young Elden, this cowpuncher. Let us know the worst."
Irene's startled eyes flew from her mother to her father's face. And there they caught something that restored their calm.
"There was no worst," she said, with a ripple of laughter. "But there was a good deal of best. Shall I tell you the best?"
"Irene," said her mother, severely, "Did you permit that young man to make love to you?"
"I did not give him permission, if that answers you, because—he didn't ask it."
Mrs. Hardy had risen, "Andrew, you hear that? She confesses. And you, blind, blind, couldn't see it!"
"Is it very dreadful?" asked Irene.
"Yes, you mock me, too. Of course it's dreadful. Horrible. What will everybody say?"
"No worse than you have said, I'll be bound," put in the doctor.
"Yes, take her part. What care you for the family name?"
"I have a right to speak for the family name," said the doctor firmly. "It was mine before it was yours. And I sometimes think, if we lived under more liberal laws, it might be mine after it had ceased to be yours.… I cannot see that the family name has been compromised in the slightest degree. This is Irene's first adventure. It will pass away. And even if it does not—he is a manly boy."
Mrs. Hardy surveyed her husband hopelessly, then turned to Irene. "Have you made any promises?"
"Only that I wouldn't make any promises until he had his chance. That seemed fair."
"I suppose you are receiving letters from him?"
"No."
"None at all?"
"None at all."
"Why doesn't he write?"
For the first time Irene's eyes fell, and the colour mounted richer in her cheeks. She had to confess now, not for herself, but for him.
"He can't write," she said.
"Merciful Heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, collapsing into a chair. "Andrew, bring me a stimulant."
The outcome was that Mrs. Hardy insisted upon Irene embarking at once upon a finishing course. When this was completed, as the girl had shown a sense for form and colour, she encouraged her into a special art course. Afterwards they travelled together for a year in Europe. Then, home again, Irene pursued her art, and her mother surrounded her with the social attractions which Dr. Hardy's comfortable income and professional standing made possible. Her purpose was obvious, and but thinly disguised. She hoped that her daughter would outlive her youthful infatuation, and would at length, in a more suitable match, give her heart to one of the numerous eligibles of her circle.
To promote this end Mrs. Hardy spared no pains. Young Carlton, son of a banker, and one of the leading men of his set, seemed a particularly appropriate match. Mrs. Hardy opened her home to him, and Carlton, whatever his motives, was not slow to grasp the situation. For years Irene had not spoken of Dave Elden, and the mother had grown to hope that the old attachment had died down and would presently be quite forgotten in a new and more becoming passion. The fact is that Irene at that time would have been quite incapable of stating her relation toward Elden and its influence upon her attitude to life. She was by no means sure that she loved that sun-burned boy of romantic memory; she was by no means sure that she should ever marry him, let his development in life be what it would. But she felt that her heart was locked, at least for the present, to all other suitors. She had given her promise, and that settled the matter. True, he had not come to claim fulfilment of that promise—and at times she scolded him soundly in the secrecy of her own mind for his negligence through all these years—but she was young, with no desire for a decisive step, and while she chafed under his apparent neglect she felt a sort of tingling dread of the day when he should neglect her no longer. One thing she knew; he had implanted in her soul a fine contempt for men of the set which Carlton typified. They would have thought Dave ignorant; but she knew that if Dave and Carlton were thrown into the wilderness on their own resources Dave would thrive and Carlton would starve. Perhaps Dave's education, although not recognized by any university save the university of hard knocks, was the more real and valuable of the two.
Notwithstanding her contempt for him, the girl found herself encouraging Carlton's advances, or at least not meeting them with the rebuffs which had been her habit toward all other suitors, and Mrs. Hardy's hopes grew as the attachment apparently developed. But they were soon to be shattered.
Irene had gone with Carlton to the theatre; afterwards to supper. It was long past midnight when she reached home; she knocked at her mother's door and immediately entered. She was splendidly gowned, but her hair was dishevelled and her cheeks were flushed, and she walked unsteadily across the room.
"What's the matter, Irene? What's the matter, child? Are you sick?" cried her mother, springing from her bed. "Oh, dear me, and the doctor is out!"
"No, I'm not sick," said the girl, brutally. "I'm drunk!"
"Oh, don't say that," said her mother, soothingly. "Proper people do not become drunk. You may have had too much champagne, and to-morrow you will have a headache—"
"Mother! I have had too much champagne, but not as much as that precious Carlton of yours had planned for. I just wanted to see how despicable he was, and I floated down stream with him as far as I dared. But just as the current got too swift I struck for shore. Oh, we made a scene, all right, but nobody knew me there, so the family name is safe and you can rest in peace. I called a taxi and when he tried to follow me in I slapped him and kicked him. Kicked him, mother. Dreadfully undignified, wasn't it?… And that's what you want me to marry, in place of a man!"
Mrs. Hardy was chattering with mortification and excitement. Her plans had miscarried. Irene had misbehaved. Irene was a difficult, headstrong child. It was useless to argue with her in her present mood. It was useless to argue with her in any mood. No doubt Carlton had been impetuous. Nevertheless, he stood high in his set, and his father was something of a power in the financial world. As the wife of such a man Irene might have a career before her—a career from which at least some of the glory would reflect upon the silvering head of the mother of Mrs. Carlton. And now Irene, by her folly and her ungovernable temper, had spoiled all the carefully laid plans. Mrs. Hardy was a very badly used woman.
"Go to your room," she said, at length. "You are in no condition to talk to-night. I must say it is a shame that you can't go out for an evening without drinking too much and making a scene.… In a public place, too.… What will Mr. Carlton think of you?"
"If he remembers all I told him about himself he'll have enough to think of," the girl blazed back. "You know—what I have told you—and stillMisterCarlton stands as high in your sight as ever.Iam the one to blame. Very well. I've tried your choice, and I've tried my own. Now I am in a position to judge. There will be nothing to talk about in the morning. Mention Carlton's name to me again and I will give the whole incident to the papers. With photographs. And names. Fancy the feature heading, 'Society girl, intoxicated, kicks escort out of taxi.' Good night."
But other matters were to demand the attention of mother and daughter in the morning. While the scene was occurring in Mrs. Hardy's bed-room her husband, clad in white, toiled in the operating room to save the life of a fellow being. It was an emergency operation, performed by artificial light, and without adequate assistance. There was a slip of an instrument, but the surgeon toiled on; he could not, at that juncture, pause; the life of the patient was at stake. When the operation was finished he found his injury deeper than he supposed, and Irene was summoned from her heavy sleep that morning to attend his bedside. He talked to her as a philosopher; said his life's work was done, and he was just as glad to go in the harness; the estate should yield something, and there was his life insurance—a third would be for her. And when Mrs. Hardy was not at his side he found opportunity to whisper, "And if you really love that boy out west,marry him."
The sudden bereavement wrought a reconciliation between Mrs. Hardy and her daughter. Mrs. Hardy took her loss very much to heart. While Irene grieved for her father, Mrs. Hardy grieved for herself. It was awful to be left alone like this. There was something in her demeanour that suggested that Andrew had been rather unkind in departing as he did. And when the lawyers found that instead of a hundred thousand dollars the estate would yield a bare third of that sum she spoke openly of her husband's improvidence. He had enjoyed a handsome income, upon which his family had lived in luxury. That it was unequal to the strain of providing for them in that fashion and at the same time accumulating a reserve for such an eventuality as had occurred was a matter which his wife could scarcely overlook.
About this time it came to the notice of Mrs. Hardy that when the late Mr. Deware had departed this life Mrs. Deware, with her two daughters, had gone on a trip to England to dull the poignancy of their bereavement. The Dewares moved in the best circles, Mr. Deware having amassed a considerable fortune in the brewing business. It was obvious that whatever Mrs. Deware might do under such circumstances would be correct. Upon arrival at this conclusion Mrs. Hardy lost no time in buying two tickets for London.
Her health, however, had suffered a severe shock, for beneath her ostentation she felt as deep a regard for her late husband as was possible in one who measured everything in life by various social formulae. On the ocean voyage she contracted a cough, which the fogs of London did little to dispel, and February found her again on the Atlantic, with her mind occupied by more personal affairs than a seat at the captain's table. The voyage was a particularly unhappy one, and the widow's first concern upon reaching home was to consult a specialist who had enjoyed a close professional acquaintanceship with Dr. Hardy. The specialist gave her a careful, meditative, and solemn examination.
"Your condition is serious," he told her, "but not alarming. You must have a drier climate, and, preferably, a higher altitude. Fortunately, your heart is good, or I should have to keep you at sea level; that is, I should have had to sacrifice your lungs for your heart." The doctor spoke as though the sacrifice would have been all his, after the manner of a specialist. "As it is, I am convinced that the conditions your health demands are to be found in…" He named the former cow-town from which Irene's fateful automobile journey had had its start, and the young woman, who was present with her mother, felt herself go suddenly pale with the thought of a great prospect.
"Oh, I could never live there," Mrs. Hardy protested. "It is so crude. Cowpunchers, you know, and all that sort of thing."
The specialist smiled. "You will probably not find it so crude, although I daresay some of its customs may jar on you," he remarked, dryly. "Still, I would recommend you to take your best gowns along. And it is not a case of not being able to live there. It is a case of not being able to live here. If you take my advice you should die of old age, so far, at least, as your present ailment is concerned. If you don't"—and he dropped his voice to just the correct note of gravity, which pleased Mrs. Hardy very much—"if you don't, I can't promise you a year."
Confronted with such an alternative, the good lady had no option but to suppress her repugnance toward cow punchers. Irene had expected opposition born of a more subtle reason, but it soon became evident that so deeply was her mother concerned with her own affairs that she had quite failed to associate the proposed change with any possibility of a re-opening of Irene's affair with the young rancher. It was years since they had discussed him, and the probability was that, although the incident remained in the back of Mrs. Hardy's memory, even his name had been forgotten.
Arrangements for the journey were made with the despatch which characterized Mrs. Hardy. She was a stickler for precedent; any departure from the beaten paths was in her decalogue the unpardonable sin, but when she had arrived at a decision she was no trifler. She accepted the situation with the resignation which she deemed to be correct under such circumstances, but the boundless prairies were to her so much desolation and ugliness. It was apparent that dwellers in the little four-cornered houses of the plains must be sadly lacking in any sense of the artistic, and as Mrs. Hardy gazed from the car window she acquired a habit of making with her tongue a sound which, owing to the limitations of the alphabet, cannot be represented to the reader, but which Irene understood to be an expression of mingled surprise, pity, and contempt. Irene gathered that her mother did not approve of prairies. They were something new to her life, and it was greatly to be suspected that they were improper.
With very different emotions did the girl find herself speeding again toward the scene of the first great event of her conscious life. For her the boundlessness, the vastness, the immeasurable sweep of the eye, suggested an environment out of which should grow a manhood and womanhood that should weigh mightily in the scales of destiny of a great nation; a manhood and womanhood defiant of the things that are, eager for the adventure of life untrammeled by traditions. She had a mental vision of the type which such a land must produce; her mind ran to riots of daring as it fashioned a picture which should fairly symbolize this people.… The day was drawing to a close, and a prairie sunset glowed upon them in a flush of colouring that stirred her artist soul. A cloudless sky, transparent as an ocean of glass; fathomless, infinite, save when in the west inverted islands of gold and brass and ruddy copper floated in a sea that gently deepened from saffron to opal; and under that sky the yellow prairies; ever, forever, and ever.… Up from the East came the night, and large, bright stars stood out, and the click-clack of the car wheels came louder and louder, and mimic car lamps raced along against the darkness outside. And then the settlers' lights began to blink across the prairie, and Irene's eyes were wet with an emotion she could not define; but she knew her painting had missed something; it had been all outline and no soul, and the prairies in the night are all soul and no outline; all softness and vagueness and yearning unutterable.…
"How tiresome it is," said her mother. "Ask the porter to make up the berths."