Mrs. Hardy accepted the surroundings she found in the city that was to be her home with not a little incredulity. For some days she treated the city as a deep rascal which had disguised its true nature in order to deceive her. She smiled at the ease with which she saw through all disguises. One of these days the cloak of respectability would be thrown off, and the shouting and shooting of the cow punchers would proclaim the West as it really was.
Very slowly it dawned upon Mrs. Hardy that this respectable, thriving city, with its well dressed, properly mannered people, its public spirit, its aggressiveness, its churches and theatres and schools, its law and order—and its afternoon teas ("My dear, who would have thought it possible?" She half expected a cowboy to ride in and overthrow the china)—very slowly it dawned upon her that this, after all, was the real West; sincere, earnest; crude, perhaps; bare, certainly; the scars of its recent battle with the wilderness still fresh upon its person; lacking the finish that only time can give to a landscape or a civilization; but lacking also the mouldiness, the mustiness, the insufferable artificiality of older communities. And the atmosphere! Day after day brought its cloudless sky, the weather, for once, having failed to observe the rule of contraries; evening after evening flooded valley and hilltop with its deluge of golden glory; night after night a crisp temperature sent her reaching for comforters. Sleep? She felt that she had never slept before. Eat? Her appetite was insatiable; all day long she lived in a semi-intoxication born of an unaccustomed altitude. And, best of all, something had happened to her cough; she did not know just what or when, but presently she discovered it was gone. Even Mrs. Hardy, steeped for sixty years in a life of precedent and rule and caste, began to catch the enthusiasm of a new land where precedent and rule and caste are something of a handicap.
"We must buy a home," she said to Irene. "We cannot afford to continue living at an hotel, and we must have our own home. You must look up a responsible dealer whose advice we can trust in a matter of this kind."
And was it remarkable that Irene Hardy should think at once of the firm of Conward & Elden? It was not. She had, indeed, been thinking of a member of that firm ever since the decision to move to the West. She had felt a peculiar hesitation about enquiring openly for Dave Elden, but, upon meeting a newspaper woman in the person of Miss Morrison she had voiced the great question with an apparent unconcern which did not in the slightest mislead the acute Roberta. It is the business of newspaper people to know things and people, and it seemed to Irene that she could ask such a question of Miss Morrison in a sort of professional way. But she had not been prepared for the reply.
The fact is Irene had not been at all sure that she wanted to marry Dave Elden. She wanted very much to meet him again; she was curious to know how the years had fared with him, and her curiosity was not unmixed with a finer sentiment; but she was not at all sure that she should marry him. She had tried to picture him in the eye of her imagination; she was sure he had acquired a modest education; he had probably been reasonably successful in business, either as an employee, or, in a small way, on his own account. She was moderately sure of all this; but there were pessimistic moods in which she saw him slipping back into the indifference of his old life soon after the inspiration of her presence had been withdrawn; perhaps still living with his bibulous father on the ranch in the foothills, or perhaps following the profession of cow puncher, held in such contempt by her mother. And in such moods she was sorry, but she knew she could never, never marry him.
"What, Dave Elden, the millionaire?" Bert Morrison had said. "Everybody knows him." And then the newspaper woman had gone on to tell what a figure Dave was in the business life of the city, and to declare that he might be equally prominent in the social life, did his fancies lead him in that direction. "One of our biggest young men," Bert Morrison had said. "Reserved, a little; likes his own company best; but absolutely white."
That gave a new turn to the situation. Irene had always wanted Dave to be a success; suddenly she doubted whether she had wanted him to be so big a success. And with that doubt came another and more disturbing one, which, if it had ever before crossed her mind, had found no harbourage there. She had doubted whether she should wish to marry Dave; she had never allowed herself to doubt that Dave would wish to marry her. Secretly, she had expected to rather dazzle him with her ten years' development—with the culture and knowledge which study and travel and life had added to the charm of her young girlhood; and suddenly she realized that her lustre would shine but dimly in the greater glory of his own.… She became conscious of a very great desire to renew with Dave the intimacy of her girlhood.
It was easy to locate the office of Conward & Elden; it stood on a principal corner of a principal street, and the name was blazoned to the wayfarer in great gilt letters. Thence she led her mother, and found herself treading on the marble floors of the richly appointed waiting room in a secret excitement which she could with difficulty conceal. She was, indeed, very uncertain about the next development.… Her mother had to be reckoned with.
A young man asked courteously what could be done for them. "We want to see the head of the firm," said Mrs. Hardy. "We want to buy a house." It occurred to Irene that in some respects her mother was extremely artless, but the issue was for the moment postponed.
They were shown into Conward's office. Time had been when they would have seen no further than a head salesman; but times were changing, and real estate dealers were losing the hauteur of the days of their great success. Conward gave them the welcome of a man who expects to make money out of his visitors. He placed a very comfortable chair for Mrs. Hardy; he adjusted the blinds to a nicety; he discarded his cigarette and beamed upon them with as great a show of cordiality as his somewhat beefy appearance would permit. The years had not been over kind to Conward's person. His natural tendency to corpulence had been abetted by excessive eating; his face was red and flabby, his lips had no more colour than his face; and nature, in deciding to deprive him of a portion of his hair, had very unkindly elected to take it in patches, giving his head a sort of pinto effect. These imperfections were quickly appraised by Irene, but his manner appealed to Mrs. Hardy, who outlined her life history with considerable detail, dwelling more than once upon the perfections of the late Dr. Hardy—which perfections she now showed a disposition to magnify, as implying a certain distinction unto herself—and ended with the confession that the West was not as bad as she had feared, and anyway it was a case of living here or dying elsewhere, so she would have to make the best of it. And here they were. And might they see a house?
Conward appeared to be reflecting. As a matter of fact, he saw in this inexperienced buyer an opportunity to reduce his holdings in anticipation of the impending crash. His difficulty was that he had no key to the financial resources of his visitors. They had lived in good circumstances; they were the family of a successful professional man, but, as Conward well knew, many successful professional men had a manner of living that galloped hard on the heels of their income. The only thing was to throw out a feeler.
"You are wanting a nice home, I take it, that can be bought at a favourable price for cash. You would consider an investment of say——."
He paused, and Mrs. Hardy supplied the information for which he was waiting. "About twenty-five thousand dollars," she said.
"We can hardly invest that much," Irene interrupted, in a whisper. "We must have something to live on."
"People here live on the profits of their investments, do they not, Mr. Conward?" Mrs. Hardy inquired. "I have been told that that is the way they live, and they seem to live very well indeed."
"Oh, certainly," Conward agreed, and he plunged into a mass of incidents to show how profitable investments had been to other clients of the firm. He emphasized particularly the desirability of buying improved property—preferably residential property—and suddenly recalled that he had something very choice in which they might be interested. At this juncture Conward's mood of deliberation gave way to one of briskness; he summoned a car, and in a few minutes his clients were looking over the property which he had recommended. Mrs. Hardy, who, during her husband's lifetime had never found it necessary to bear financial responsibilities or make business decisions, was an amateurish buyer, her tendency being alternately to excess of caution on one side and recklessness on the other. Conward's manner pleased her; the house he showed pleased her, and she was eager to have it over with. But he was too shrewd to appear to encourage a hasty decision. He realized at once that he had sold Mrs. Hardy, but Irene was a customer calling for more tactful handling. Conward's eye had not failed to appraise the charm of the young woman's appearance. He would gladly have ingratiated himself with her, but he was conscious of a force in her personality that held him aloof. And that consciousness made him desire the more to gain her confidence.… However, this was a business transaction. He did not seize upon Mrs. Hardy's remark that the house seemed perfectly satisfactory; on the contrary, he insisted on showing other houses, which he quoted at such impossible figures that presently the old lady was in a feverish haste to make a deposit lest some other buyer should forestall her.
Back in Conward's office, while the agreement was being drawn, Irene was possessed of a consuming desire to consult with Dave Elden. She was uneasy about this transaction in which her mother proposed so precipitately to invest the greater part of their little fortune. But the more she thought over the situation the more its difficulties became apparent. She had no personal knowledge or experience which could be summoned for such an occasion. She would like to have asked Dave's advice; instinctively she distrusted Conward. Yet, … Conward was Dave's partner. It was impossible to attribute honest motives to one half of the firm and deny them to the other. And it was unreasonable to expect that Dave's advice would conflict with Conward's. And, in the event that an issue did arise between the two partners, it was quite certain that her mother would side with Conward. Meanwhile the agreement neared completion, and Mrs. Hardy had produced her cheque book.
Irene's excitement at length reached the point where she could no longer remain silent. "I think I would hesitate, mother," she cried. "If you buy this house we will have only a few thousand dollars left. I am not thinking of myself. Your health may demand other expenditures——"
"My health was never better," Mrs. Hardy interrupted. "And I'm not going to miss a chance like this, health or no health. You have heard Mr. Conward tell how many people have grown wealthy buying property and selling it again. And I will sell it again—when I get my price," she ended, with a finality that suggested that large profits were already assured.
"It is as your mother says," Conward interjected. "There are many rapid increases in value. I would not be surprised if you should be offered an advance of ten thousand dollars on this place before Fall. It is really a very exceptional investment."
"There must be an end somewhere," Irene murmured, rather weakly. But her mother was writing a cheque. "I shall give you five thousand dollars now," she said, "and the balance when you give me the deed, or whatever it is. That is the proper way, isn't it?"
"Well, it's done," said Irene, with an uneasy laugh, which her excitement pitched a little higher than she had intended.
In an adjoining room Dave Elden heard that laugh, and it stirred some remembrance in him. Instantly he connected it with Irene Hardy. The truth was Irene Hardy had been in the background of his mind during every waking hour since Bert Morrison had dropped her bombshell upon him. How effectively she had dropped it! What a hit she had scored! Dave had ricochetted ever since between amusement and chagrin at her generalship. She had deliberately created for him opportunities—a whole evening full of them—to confess about Irene Hardy, and when he had refused to admit that he had anything to confess she had confounded him with an incident that admitted no explanation. For a moment he had stood speechless, overcome with the significance of what she had said; the next, he reached out to detain her, but she was already on the stairs of her apartment and waving him a laughing good-night. And now that voice—
Dave had no plan. He simply walked into Conward's office. His eye took in the little group, and the mind behind caught something of its portent. Irene's beauty! What a quickening of the pulses was his as he saw in this splendid woman the girl who had stirred and returned his youthful passion! But Dave had poise. Upon a natural ability to take care of himself in a physical sense, environment and training had imposed a mental resourcefulness not easily taken at a disadvantage. He walked straight to Irene.
"I heard your voice," he said, in quiet tones that gave no hint of the emotion beneath. "I am very glad to see you again." He took the hand which she extended in a firm, warm grasp; there was nothing in it, as Irene protested to herself, that was more than firm and warm, but it set her finger-tips a-tingling.
"My mother, Mr. Elden," she managed to say, and she hoped her voice was as well controlled as his had been. Mrs. Hardy looked on the clean-built young man with the dark eyes and the brown, smooth face, but the name suggested nothing. "You remember," Irene went on. "I told you of Mr. Elden. It was at his ranch we stayed when father was hurt."
"But I thought he was a cowpuncher," exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, with no abatement of the contempt which she always compressed into the one western term which had smuggled into her vocabulary.
"Times change quickly in the West, madam," said Dave. There was nothing in his voice to suggest that he had caught the note in hers. "Most of our business men—at least, those bred in the country—have thrown a lasso in their day. You should hear them brag of their steer-roping yet in the Ranchmen's Club." Irene's eyes danced. Dave had already turned the tables; where her mother had implied contempt he had set up a note of pride. It was a matter of pride among these square-built, daring Western men that they had graduated into their office chairs from the saddle and the out-of-doors.
"Oh, I suppose," said her mother, for lack of a better answer. "Everything is so absurd in the West. But you were good to my daughter, and to poor, dear Andrew. If only he had been spared. Women are so unused to these business responsibilities, Mr. Conward. It is fortunate there are a few reliable firms upon which we can lean in our inexperience."
"Mother has bought a house," Irene explained to Dave. "We thought this was a safe place to come——"
A look on Elden's face caused her to pause. "Why, what is wrong?" she said.
Dave looked at Conward, at Mrs. Hardy, and at Irene. He was instantly aware that Conward had "stung" them. It was common knowledge in inside circles that the bottom was going out. The firm of Conward & Elden had been scurrying for cover; as quietly and secretly as possible, to avoid alarming the public, but scurrying for cover nevertheless. And Dave had acquiesced in that policy. He had little stomach for it, but no other course seemed possible. Conward, he knew, had no scruples. Bert Morrison had been caught in his snare, and now this other and dearer friend had proved a ready victim. As Conward was wont to say, business is business. And he had acquiesced. His position was extremely difficult.
"I don't think I would be in a hurry to buy," he said, slowly turning his eyes on his partner. "You would perhaps be wiser to rent a home for awhile. Rents are becoming easier."
"But Ihavebought," said Mrs. Hardy, and there was triumph rather than regret in her voice. "I have paid my deposit."
"It is the policy of this firm," Elden continued, "not to force or take advantage of hurried decisions. The fact that you have already made a deposit does not alter that policy. I think I may speak for my partner and the firm when I say that your deposit will be held to your credit for thirty days, during which time it will constitute an option on the property which you have selected. If, at the end of that time, you are still of your present mind, the transaction can go through as now planned; and if you have changed your mind your deposit will be returned."
Conward shifted under Dave's direct eye. He preferred to look at Mrs. Hardy. "What Mr. Elden has told you about the policy of the firm is quite true," he managed to say. "But, as it happens, this transaction is not with Conward & Elden, but with me personally. I find it necessary to dispose of the property which I have just sold to you at such an exceptional price"—he was looking at Mrs. Hardy—"I find it necessary for financial reasons to dispose of it, and naturally I cannot run a chance of having my plans overturned by any possible change of mind on your part. Not that I think you will change your mind," he hurried to add. "I think you are already convinced that it is a very good buy indeed."
"I am entirely satisfied," said Mrs. Hardy. "The fact that Mr. Elden wants to get the property back makes me more satisfied," she added, with the peculiarly irritating laugh of a woman who thinks she is extraordinarily shrewd, and is only very silly.
"The agreement is signed?" said Dave. He walked to the desk and picked up the documents, and the cheque that lay upon them. His eye ran down the familiar contract. "This agreement is in the name of Conward & Elden," he said. "This cheque is payable to Conward & Elden."
He was addressing Conward. Conward's livid face had become white, and it was with difficulty he controlled his anger. "They are all printed that way," he explained. "I am going to have them endorsed over to me."
"You arenot," said Dave. "You are charging this woman twenty-five thousand dollars for a house that won't bring twenty thousand on the open market to-day, and by Fall won't bring ten thousand. The firm of Conward & Elden will have nothing to do with that transaction. It won't even endorse it over."
A fire was burning in the grate. Dave walked to it, and very slowly and deliberately thrust the agreement and the cheque into the flame. For a moment the printed letters stood out after the body of the paper was consumed; then all fell to ashes.
"Well, if that doesn't beat all!" Mrs. Hardy ejaculated. "Are all cowpunchersso discourteous?"
"I mean no discourtesy," said Dave. "And I hope you will let me say now, what I should have said before, that it was with the deepest regret I learned from your conversation of the death of Dr. Hardy. He was a gentleman who commanded my respect, as he must have commanded the respect of all who knew him. If my behaviour has seemed abrupt I assure you I have only sought to serve Dr. Hardy's widow—and his daughter."
"It is a peculiar service," Mrs. Hardy answered curtly. She felt she had a grievance against Dave. He had not lived down to her conception of what a raw Western youth should be. Even the act of burning the agreement and the cheque, dramatic though it was, had a poise to it that seemed inappropriate. Dave should have snatched the papers—it would have been better had the partners fought over them—he should have crumpled them in rage and consigned them to the fire with curses. Mrs. Hardy felt that in such conduct Dave would have been running true to form. His assumption of the manners of a gentleman annoyed her exceedingly.
"I can only apologize for my partner's behaviour," said Conward. "It need not, however, affect the transaction in the slightest degree. A new agreement will be drawn at once—an agreement in which the firm of Conward & Elden will not be concerned."
"That will be more satisfactory," said Mrs. Hardy. She intended the remark for Dave's ears, but he had moved to a corner of the room and was conversing in low tones with Irene.
"I am sorry I had to make your mother's acquaintance under circumstances which, I fear, she will not even try to understand," he had said to Irene. "I am sure she will not credit me with unselfish motives."
"Oh, Dave—Mr. Elden, I mean—that is—you don't know how proud—you don't know how much of amanyou made me feel you are."
She was flushed and excited. "Perhaps I shouldn't talk like this. Perhaps——"
"It all depends on one thing," Dave interrupted.
"What is that?"
"It all depends on whether we are Miss Hardy and Mr. Elden, or whether we are still Reenie and Dave."
Her bright eyes had fallen to the floor, and he could see the tremor of her fingers as they rested on the back of a chair. She did not answer him directly. But in a moment she spoke.
"Mother will buy the house from Mr. Conward," she said. "She is like that. And when we are settled you will come and see me, won't you—Dave?"
When the Hardys had gone Conward turned to Elden. "We had better try and find out where we stand," he said, trying to speak dispassionately, but there was a tremor in his voice.
"I agree," returned Elden, who had no desire to evade the issue. "Do you consider it fair to select inexperienced women for your victims?"
Conward made a deprecating gesture. "There is nothing to be gained by quarreling, Dave," he said. "Let us face the situation fairly. Let us get at the facts. When we have agreed as to facts, then we may agree as to procedure."
"Shoot," said Dave. He stood with his shoulder toward Conward, watching the dusk settling about the foothill city. The streets led away into the gathering darkness, and the square brick blocks stood in blue silhouette against a champagne sky. He became conscious of a strange yearning for this young metropolis; a sort of parental brooding over a boisterous, lovable, wayward youth. It was his city; no one could claim it more than he. And it was a good city to look upon, and to mingle in, and to dream about.
"I think," said Conward, "we can agree that the boom is over. Booms feed upon themselves, and eventually they eat themselves up. We have done well, on paper. The thing now is to convert our paper into cash."
Dave turned about. "You know I don't claim to be any great moralist, Conward," he said, "and I have no pity for a gambler who deliberately sits in and gets stung. Consequently I am not troubled with any self-pity, nor any pity for you. And if you can get rid of our holdings to other gamblers I have nothing to say. But if it is to be loaded on to women who are investing the little savings of their lives—women like Bert Morrison and Mrs. Hardy—then I am going to have a good deal to say. And there is that man—what's his name?—Merton, I think; a lunger if there ever was one; tuberculosis written all over him; a widower, too, with a little boy, sent out here as his last chance—you loaded him with stuff where he can't see the smoke of the city, and you call it city property. That's what I want to talk about," said Dave, with rising heat. "If business has to be done that way, then I say, to hell with business!"
"I asked you not to quarrel," Conward returned, with remarkable composure. "I suggested that we get at the facts. That seems to be a business suggestion. I think we are agreed that the boom is over. Values are on the down grade. The boomsters are departing. They are moving on to new fields, as we should have done a year or two ago, but I confess I had a sort of sentiment for this place. Well—that is the price of sentiment. It won't mix with business. Now, granting that the boom is over, where do we stand?
"We are rated as millionaires, but we haven't a thousand dollars in the bank at this moment. This," he lifted Mrs. Hardy's cheque, "would have seen us over next pay day, but you say the firm must have nothing to do with it. And which is the more immoral—since you have spoken of morality—to accept labour from clerks whom you can't pay, or to sell property to women who say they want it and are satisfied with the price? We make our income by selling property. As soon as the sales stop, the income stops. Well, the sales have stopped. But the expense goes on. We have literally thousands of unsettled contracts. We must keep our staff together. We have debts to pay, and we owe it to our creditors to make collections so that we can pay those debts, and we can't make collections without staff. I sympathize with your feelings on this matter, Dave, but what's a man to do? It's like war; we must kill or be killed. Business is war, of a kind. Why, on the property we are now holding the taxes alone will amount to twenty thousand dollars a year. And I put it up to you; if we are going to stand on sentiment, who's going to pay the taxes?"
"I know; I know," said Dave, whose anger over the treatment of the Hardys was already subsiding. "We are in the grip of the System. As you have said, it is kill or be killed. Still—in war they don't usually kill women and non-combatants. That is the point I'm trying to make. I've no sentiment about others who are in the game as we are. If you limit your operations to them——"
"The trouble is, you can't. They're wise. They see the bottom going, and they quit. Most of them have already moved on. A few firms, like ourselves, will stay and try to fight it out; try, at least, to close up with a clean sheet, if we must close up. But we can't wind up a business without selling the stock on hand, and to whom are we to sell it, if not to people who want it? That is what you seem to object to."
"You place me in rather an unfair light," Dave protested. "What I object to is taking the life savings of people—people of moderate circumstances, mainly—in exchange for property which we know to be worth next to nothing."
"Yet you admit that we must clean up, don't you?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"And there's no other way, Dave," said Conward, rising and placing an arm on his partner's shoulder, "I sympathize with your point of view, but, my boy, it's pure sentiment, and sentiment has no place in business. And you remember the terms of our partnership, don't you?"
Dave hesitated a few moments, as he threw his mind back over the years that had gone by since the day when Conward proposed a partnership to him. He saw again his little office where he ground out "stuff" forThe Call, the littered desk and floor, the cartoons on the walls, the big shears, and the paste pot—yes, the paste pot, and the lock he had installed to protect it, and his select file of time copy, from depredation. And the smell of printer's ink; even yet, when business took Dave into a printing office, the smell of ink brought back those old, happy days. Happy days? When he worked more hours than a man should work, for less salary than a man should get; when the glorious out-of-doors called him and his soul rebelled against the despotism of fate! Yes, surely they were happy days. He smiled a moment as he thought of them; paused to dally with them on his way to an answer for Conward; then skimmed quickly down the surface of events to this present evening. More wonderful had the years been than any dream of fiction; no wizard's wand had ever worked richer magic.…
"You remember, don't you?" Conward repeated.
"Oh, about the coal?" Dave laughed. The moment of reminiscence had restored his good humour. "Yes, I suppose it was a bargain. You have held me to it pretty well."
"Let it remain a bargain to the end," said Conward. "It is the only way we can finish up."
Dave dropped the subject. There appeared to be nothing to gain from pursuing it further. They were in the grip of a System—a System which had found them poor, had suddenly made them wealthy, and now, with equal suddenness, threatened to make them poor again. It was like war—kill or be killed. It occurred to Dave that it was even worse than war. War has in it the qualities of the heroic; splendid bravery; immeasurable self-sacrifice; that broad spirit of devotion to a vague ideal which, for lack of a better name, is called patriotism. This System had none of that. It was more like assassination.…
Night had settled when Dave left the office. The champagne sky had deepened into a strip of copper; the silhouettes were soft and black; street lights studded the bank of foothills to the west like setting stars. Darkness had tucked the distance that lay between the city and the Rockies in the lap of night, and the great ridge stood up close and clear, prodding its jagged edge into the copper pennant of the day's farewell. A soft wind blew from the south-west; June was in the air. June, too, was in Dave's heart as he walked the few blocks to his bachelor quarters. What of the drab injustice of business? Let him forget that; now it was night … and she had called him Dave. He climbed the steps to his room with energy and life tingling in his limbs; then he stood in his window and for a long while watched the traffic in the street below. That is, his eyes were directed to the traffic, but what he saw was a merry girl in a brown sweater, showering her glances of admiration upon a raw youth of the ranges whose highest ambition was to break six bottles with six bullets. And she had even held that to be a worthy ambition. She had said, "Perhaps the day is coming when our country will want men who can shoot and ride more than it will want lawyers or professors." He smiled at the recollection of her words. The romantic days of youth! like the mirage of sunrise they fade and are lost in the morning of life.… And their young philosophies! The night they found the dead calf; he had propounded the wisdom that it is always the innocent thing that suffers; that the crittur that can't run gets caught. Well, that seemed to hold good. Wasn't that what Conward had argued to him this very afternoon, and he had found no answer? He wondered what Reenie's experience had been.… And then the compact under the spruce trees.… "Come to me—like that—" she had said, "and then—then we'll know." And to-day she had called him Dave.
He dressed with care. The Chinese boy was never more obsequious in his attentions, and Dave never presented a more manly appearance. It was not until he was about to leave his rooms that he remembered he must dine alone; he had been dressing for her, unconsciously. The realization brought him up with something of a shock. "This will never do," he said, "I can't eat alone to-night. And I can't ask Reenie, so soon after the incident with her mother. I know—Bert Morrison." He reached for the telephone and rang her number. Had anyone charged Dave with fickleness in his affections he would have laughed at the absurdity. Had he not remained true to one great passion through the dangerous decade of his life? A man always thinks of the decade just ended as the dangerous decade. And Bert Morrison was a good friend. As he waited at the telephone he recalled the impulse which had seized him when they had last parted. But the recollection brought only a glow of friendship for Bert. There was no hint of danger in it.
Her number did not answer. He thought of Edith Duncan. But Edith lived at home, and it was much too late to extend a formal dinner invitation. There was nothing for it but to eat alone. He suddenly became conscious of the great loneliness of his bachelor life. After all, he was quite as much alone in the city as he had been in his boyhood in the hills. He began to moralize on this subject of loneliness. It was very evident to him now that his life had been empty and shallow. It was rather evident that any single life is empty and shallow. Nature had made no mistake in decreeing that humans should live in pairs. Dave had never thought much on that point before, but now it struck him as so obvious that none could fail to see its logic. The charm of bachelorhood was a myth which only needed contact with the gentle atmosphere of feminine affection to be exposed.
The Chinese boy coughed deferentially, and Dave was recalled from his reverie. He took his hat and coat and went into the street. It was his custom to take his meals at a modest eating-place on a side avenue, but to-night he directed his steps to the best hotel the city afforded. There was no wisdom in dressing for an event unless he were going to deflect his course somewhat from the daily routine.
The dining hall was a blaze of light; the odour of early roses blended with imported perfumes, and strains of sweet, subdued music trembled through the room in accompaniment to the merry-making of the diners. Dave paused for a moment, awaiting the beck of a waiter, but in that moment his eye fell on Conward, seated at a table with Mrs. Hardy and Irene. Conward had seen him, and was motioning to him to join them. The situation was embarrassing, and yet delightful. He was glad he had dressed for dinner.
"Join us, Elden," Conward said, as he reached their table. "Just a little dinner to celebrate to-day's transaction. You will not refuse to share to that extent?"
Dave looked at Mrs. Hardy. Had he been dealing with Conward and Mrs. Hardy alone he would have excused himself, but he had to think of Irene. That is, he had to justify her by being correct in his manners. And as he looked from mother to daughter he realized that Irene had not inherited all her beauty from her father. In their dinner gowns Mrs. Hardy was sedate and even beautiful, and her daughter ravishing. Dave thought he had not before seen so much womanly charm in any figure.
"Dojoin us," said Mrs. Hardy. It was evident to Mrs. Hardy that it would be correct for her to support Mr. Conward's invitation.
"You are very kind," said Dave, as he seated himself. "I had not hoped for this pleasure." And yet the pleasure was not unmixed. He felt that Conward had out-played him. It was Conward who had done the gracious thing. And Dave could not prevent Conward doing the gracious thing without himself being ungracious.
He was aware of being under the close scrutiny of Mrs. Hardy. True, Conward sought to monopolize her attention. He had an ingratiating way with strangers; he struck a confidential note that quickly called forth confidence in return, and Dave was chagrined to see that not only was his partner creating the intended impression upon Mrs. Hardy, but his sallies and witticisms were gradually winning response from Irene. And the more he was annoyed at this turn of affairs the less was he able to arrest it. As Conward's guest he could not quarrel, and his fear of over-stepping the mark if he engaged in discussion induced a silence which might easily have been mistaken for mental inanition. He contented himself with being punctiliously correct in his table etiquette.
Perhaps he could have followed no wiser course, Dave's manners had an effect upon Mrs. Hardy similar to that which she had experienced from the decent civilization of the western city. To her it seemed impossible that a raw youth, bred on the ranges—a cow puncher—could conduct himself correctly in evening dress at a fashionable table. It was more than impossible—it was heterodox; it was a defiance of all the principles upon which caste is based, and to Mrs. Hardy caste was the one safe line of demarkation between refinement and vulgarity. So she noted Elden's correct deportment, even to—as it seemed to her—his correct modesty in taking little part in the conversation, with a sense that all this was a disguise, and that presently he would, figuratively, burst forth from his linen and broadcloth and stand revealed in schaps and bandana. But the meal progressed with no such development, and Mrs. Hardy had a vague sense that this young man was not dealing fairly with her. He was refusing to live up to her preconceived ideas of what his part should be. Had Mrs. Hardy been capable of analyzing her own emotions correctly, she would have known that Dave was undermining her belief in caste, and without caste there could be no civilization! But Mrs. Hardy was not a deep self-analyst. Those who accept all distinctions as due to external causes have no occasion to employ any deep mental subtlety in classifying their acquaintances. So, as has been stated, the impression created upon her mind by Elden's proper conduct was one of vague annoyance that proper conduct should be found in one not reared within the charmed circle of theelite.
After dinner they sat in the lounge-room, and Conward beguiled the time with stories of sudden wealth which had been practically forced upon men who were now regarded as the business frame-work of the country. As these worthies strolled through the richly furnished room leisurely smoking their after-dinner cigars Conward would make a swift summary of their rise from liveryman, cow puncher, clerk or labourer to their present affluence, occasionally appealing to Dave to corroborate his statements. It was particularly distasteful to Elden to be obliged to add his word to Conward's in such matters, for although Conward carefully refrained from making any direct reference to Mrs. Hardy's purchase, the inference that great profits would accrue to her therefrom was very obvious.
A tall man passed by with a richly gowned woman on his arm. "Jim Farley," Conward explained. "Plasterer by trade. Began dabbling in real estate. Now rated as a millionaire."
Conward paused to light another cigarette. "Interesting case, Farley's," he continued, after a pause. "You remember it, Elden?" Dave nodded. "Farley blew in here from Scotland, or some such place, looking for work with his trowel. That was about the time of the beginning of things, as things are reckoned here. Some unscrupulous dealer learned that Farley had three hundred dollars—it goes to show what has happened even when the motive of the seller could hardly be endorsed as honest business. Well, this dealer learned that Farley had three hundred dollars, and by means of much conviviality he induced him to invest that amount in a pair of lots on a cut-bank in the most outlandish place you can imagine. When Farley came to himself he was so sick over it he moved on to the Coast, and took up his trade of plastering.
"Well, in a couple of years things had happened. The principal thing, so far as Farley's fortunes were concerned, was the decision of a new transcontinental railway to build into this centre. Now it so happened that nature or geology or topography or whatever it is that controls such matters had decreed that the railway must cross Farley's lots. There was no other way in. It became the duty of Conward & Elden to buy those lots. We ascertained his address and wired him an offer of two thousand dollars. There was no time to lose, and we felt that that offer would cinch it. But we had overlooked the fact that Farley was Scotch. Did he accept our offer? He did not. He reasoned like this: 'If I am worth two thousand dollars I can afford a little holiday.' So he threw up his job and in a couple of days he walked into our office. Would he listen to reason? He would not. He knew that an eagle would scarcely choose his property as a building site. He knew that whoever was going to buy those lots was going to buy them because he had to have them—because they were essential to some project. And he simply sat tight.
"To make the story short—how much do you think we paid for them? Ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars cash. And he made us pay the cost of the transfer. You remember that, Elden? We laughed over it at the time. Then he immediately re-invested his little fortune, and to-day— It's the story of hundreds."
Elden was glad when Mrs. Hardy remembered that she must not remain up late. Her physician had prescribed rest. Early to bed, you know. Still, Mr. Conward's anecdotes were so refreshing, so suggestive of that—what is it you call it?—that spirit of the West, etc. Dave had opportunity for just a word with Irene before they left.
"How did this happen—to-night?" he asked, with the calm assumption of one who has a right to know.
"Oh, Mr. Conward telephoned an invitation to mother," she explained. "I was so glad you happened in. You have had wonderful experiences; it must be inspiring—ennobling—to take such part in the building of a new city; something that will be here forever as a monument to the men of this generation. Mr. Conward is charming, isn't he?"
Dave did not know whether the compliment to Conward was a personal matter concerning his partner, or whether it was to be taken as a courtesy to the firm. In either case he rather resented it. He wondered what Irene would think of this "ennobling" business in the drab days of disillusionment that must soon sweep down upon them. But Irene apparently did not miss his answer.
"We shall soon be settled," she said, as Mrs. Hardy and Conward were seen approaching. "Then you will come and visit us?"
"I will—Reenie," he whispered, and he was sure the colour that mounted in her cheeks held no tinge of displeasure.
Elden lost no time in making his first call upon the Hardys. He had discussed the matter with Irene over the telephone. "We are hardly in order yet," she had explained. "We are in a chaos of house-furnishing, but you will be welcome. And there may be boxes to lift, and carpets to lay, and heavy things to shove about."
He found, however, that very fine order had already been established in the Hardy home, or, at any rate, in that part of it available to visitors. Mrs. Hardy would have barred, with her own robust body if necessary, his admission into any such surroundings as Irene had pictured. Irene received him cordially, but Mrs. Hardy evinced no more warmth than propriety demanded. Elden, however, allowed himself no annoyance over that. A very much greater grievance had been thrust upon his mind. Conward had preceded him, and was already a guest of the Hardys.
Dave had accepted the fact of Conward's dinner party as a natural enough occurrence, and after Irene's explanation he had dismissed it from his mind. Conward's presence in the Hardy home was a more serious matter. He knew Conward well enough to know that purpose always lay behind his conduct, and during the small talk with which they whiled away an hour his mind was reaching out acutely, exploring every nook of possibility, to arrive, if it could, at some explanation of the sudden interest which Conward was displaying in the Hardys. These explanations narrowed down to two almost equally unpalatable. Conward was deliberately setting about to capture the friendship, perhaps the affection, of either Mrs. Hardy or Irene. Strangely enough, Elden was more irritated by the former alternative than by the latter. He felt that if Conward's purposes were directed towards Irene that was at least fair warfare; he could not bring himself to think similarly of a suit that involved Mrs. Hardy. Perhaps this attitude was due to subconscious recognition of the fact that he had much more to fear from Conward as a suitor for the hand of Mrs. Hardy than as a rival for that of Irene. On the latter score he had no misgivings; he was confident of his ability to worst any adversary in that field, and competition would lend a piquancy to his courtship not altogether without advantages; but he had no such confidence in the case of an assault upon the heart of the elder woman. He could not become Conward's rival in such a case, and, repugnant as the idea was to him, he felt no assurance that such a match might not develop. And Conward, as a prospective father-in-law, was a more grievous menace to his peace of mind than Conward as a defeated rival.
The more he contemplated this aspect of the case the less he liked it. He would not do Conward the compliment of supposing that he had, or might develop, a genuine attachment for Mrs. Hardy. It was true that Mrs. Hardy, notwithstanding her years and her eccentricities, had a certain stateliness of manner through which at times protruded a reckless frankness that lent a unique charm to her personality, but it was impossible to suppose that Conward had been captivated by these interesting qualities. To Conward the affair could be nothing more than an adventure, but it would give him a position of a sort of semi-paternal authority over both Irene and Elden. Fortunately for his train of thought, which was floundering into more and more difficult travel, the prospect of having to appeal to Conward for the honour of Irene's hand in marriage touched Dave's sense of humour, and he suddenly burst into inappropriate laughter in the course of Mrs. Hardy's panegyric upon the life and morals of her late husband.
Mrs. Hardy contracted her eyebrows.
"I beg your pardon," said Dave. "I have to confess I allowed my wits to go rambling, and they stumbled upon a—upon a very amusing absurdity." Elden's mind was engaged with Mrs. Hardy and Conward, and, unintentionally, he allowed his eyes to embrace them both in his remark. One more astute than Mrs. Hardy might have had a glimmer of the absurdity which had provoked Dave's untimely mirth, but she was a woman who took herself with much seriousness. If Conward guessed anything he concealed his intuition behind a mask of polite attention.
Mrs. Hardy addressed a severe gaze at Elden. "You should keep your wits better in hand, young man. When you find them rambling it might be well to—ah—lassothem. Ha, ha, Mr. Conward. That's the word, is it not?Lassothem." This unexpected witticism on Mrs. Hardy's part had the fortunate effect of restoring that lady's good humour, and Elden found an easy way out of the situation by joining in the general laughter.
"I fear a thought would be a somewhat elusive thing to get a rope on," he ventured.
"But if it could be done, Dave would do it," Irene interjected. "You remember——"
"Dave?" said Mrs. Hardy, sharply. "You mean Mr. Elden."
The colour rose in the young woman's cheeks, but she stood by her guns. "He was Dave in those days," she said. "It would be impossible to think of amistergalloping about over the foothills, swinging his lariat, or smashing bottles with his six-shooter. Mister fits in with the conventions; with tailors and perfume and evening dress, but it doesn't seem to have any place in the foothills."
"You're right," Conward agreed. "Mister has no place on horseback. If you were to go out on the ranges and begin mistering the cow-punchers, like as not they'd lead you into camp at a rope-end. No man really makes much of a hit in this country until everybody calls him by his first name."
"Well, Mr. Elden seems to have made a hit, as you call it, with some of his acquaintances," said Mrs. Hardy, with a touch of acidity. "I think, Irene, you would do well to remember that we are not out on the ranges, and that Mr. Elden no longer pursues his living with a lariat."
"It may be a point of view I have acquired in the West," Irene persisted. "But I think it a greater courtesy to address a man by his Christian name than by any artificial title. It is something like admitting a guest into the kitchen—a privilege not extended to the casual visitor. It seems like taking him into the family——"
"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy. "Have we come to that?"
Irene's cheeks and eyes grew brighter still. "Oh, I didn't mean that," she protested. "I was—I was employing a figure of speech."
So the talk drifted on, sometimes safely, sometimes through tortuous channels that threatened at any moment to over-turn their little shell of convention. But no such catastrophe occurred, and when, at length, Mrs. Hardy began to show signs of weariness, Irene served coffee and cake, and the two men, taking that as an intimation that their welcome had run down, but would re-wind itself if not too continually drawn upon, left the house together. On their way they agreed that it was a very beautiful night.
Dave turned the situation over in his mind with some impatience. Irene had now been in the city for several weeks, and he had had opportunity for scarce a dozen personal words with her. Was he to be baulked by such an insufferable chaperonage as it seemed the purpose of Mrs. Hardy and Conward to establish over his love affair? No. In the act of undressing he told himself No, suiting to the word such vigour of behaviour that in the morning he found his shoes at opposite corners of the room. No! He who, as a boy, had not hesitated to assert a sort of proprietorship over Irene, would not hesitate now— He was keyed to the heroic.
Several days passed without any word from Irene, and he had almost made up his mind to attempt another telephone appointment, when he met her, quite accidentally, in the street. It was a beautiful afternoon; warm, but not hot, with a fresh breeze from the mountains flowing through the unclouded heavens, and a radiant sun pouring down upon all. But Irene looked more radiant still. She had been shopping, she said. The duty of household purchases fell mainly upon her. Her mother rested in the afternoons——
"How about a cup of tea?" said Dave. "And a thin sandwich? And a delicate morsel of cake? One can always count on thin sandwiches and delicate morsels of cake. Their function is purely a social one, having no relation to the physical requirements."
"I should be very glad," said Irene.
They found a quiet tea-room. When they were seated Dave, without preliminaries, plunged into the subject nearest his heart.
"I have been wanting an opportunity to talk to you—wanting it for weeks," he said. "But it always seemed——"
"Always seemed that you were thwarted," Irene completed his thought. "You didn't disguise your annoyance very well the other night."
"Do you blame me for being annoyed?"
"No. But I rather blame you for showing it. You see, I was annoyed too."
"Then you had nothing to do with—with bringing about the situation that existed?"
"Certainly not. Surely you do not think that I would—that I would——"
"I beg your pardon, Reenie," said Dave, contritely. "I should have known better. But it seemed such a strange coincidence."
She was toying with her cup, and for once her eyes avoided him. "You should hardly think, Dave," she ventured,—"you should hardly conclude that—what has been, you know, gives you the right—entitles you——"
"To a monopoly of your attentions. Perhaps not. But it gives me the right to a fair chance to win a monopoly of your attentions." He was speaking low and earnestly, and his voice had a deep, rich timbre in it that thrilled and almost frightened her. She could not resent his straightforwardness. She felt that he was already asserting his claim upon her, and there was something tender and delightful in the sense of being claimed by such a man.
"I must have a fair chance to win that monopoly," he repeated. "How did it happen that Conward was present?"
"I don't know. It just happened. A little after you telephoned me he called up and asked for mother, and the next I knew she said he was coming up to spend the evening. And then I said you were coming."
"And what did she say?"
Irene hesitated. "Please don't make me tell you," she whispered at length.
"Don't hesitate from any fear of hurting me," he said, with a laugh. "I know I have failed to make a hit with your mother. On your account I could wish I had been more successful, but perhaps she will be fairer when she knows me better. What did she say?"
"She just said, 'That cowpuncher.' And I just told her that you were the man who put the punch in the Conward & Elden firm—you see I am learning your slang—and that everybody says so, and a few more things I told her, too."
But Dave had dropped into a sudden reverie. It was not so remarkable as it seemed that Conward should have telephoned Mrs. Hardy almost immediately after he had used the line. Conward's telephone and Dave's were on the same circuit; it was a simple matter for Conward, if he had happened to lift the receiver during Dave's conversation with Irene, to overhear all that was said. That might happen accidentally; at least, it might begin innocently enough. The fact that Conward had acted upon the information indicated two things; first, that he had no very troublesome sense of honour—which Dave had long suspected—and second, that he had deliberately planned a confliction with Dave's visit to the Hardy home. This indicated a policy of some kind; a scheme deeper than Dave was as yet able to fathom. He would at least guard against any further eavesdropping on his telephone.
He took a card from his pocket, and made some figures on it. "If you should have occasion to call me at the office at any time, please use that number, and ask for me," he said. "It is the accountant's number. 'There's a reason.'"
It flattered his masculine authority that she put the card in her purse without comment. She did not ask him to explain. Dave knew that when a woman no longer asks for explanations she pays man her highest compliment.
The cups were empty; the sandwiches and cake were gone, but they lingered on.
"I have been wondering," Dave ventured at length, "just where I stand—with you. You remember our agreement?"
She averted her eyes, but her voice was steady. "You have observed the terms?" she said.
"Yes—in all essential matters. I come to you now—in accordance with those terms. You said that we would know. NowIknow; know as I have always known since those wonderful days in the foothills; those days from which I date my existence. Anything worth while that has ripened in my life was sown by your smile and your confidence and your strange pride in me, back in those sunny days. And I would repay it all—and at the same time double my debt—by returning it to you, if I may."
"I realize that I owe you an answer, now, Dave," she said, frankly. "And I find it very hard to make that answer. Marriage means so much more to a woman than it does to a man. I know you don't think so, but it does. Man, after the honeymoon, returns to his first love—his day's work. But woman cannot go back.… Don't misunderstand me, Dave. I would be ashamed to say I doubt myself, or that I don't know my mind, but you and I are no longer boy and girl. We are man and woman now. And I just want time—just want time to besurethat—that——"
"I suppose you are right," he answered. "I will not try to hurry your decision. I will only try to give you an opportunity to know—to be sure, as you said. Then, when you are sure, you will speak. I will not re-open the subject."
His words had something of the ring of an ultimatum, but no endearments that his lips might have uttered could have gripped her heart so surely. She knew they were the words of a man in deadly earnest, a man who had himself in hand, a man who made love with the same serious purpose as he had employed in the other projects of his successful life. She raised her eyes to his fine face. Decision was stamped all over it; from the firm jaw to the steady eyes that met her own. Suddenly she began to tremble. It was not fear. Afterwards she knew it to have been pride—pride in his great masterly manfulness; in a judgment so sure of itself that it dallied not a moment in stating the terms upon which all future happiness might hang. For if Dave had misread Irene's heart he had deliberately closed the only door through which he might hope to approach it. But Irene instinctively knew that he had not misread her heart; it seemed that this bold, daring manoeuvre had captured the citadel at a stroke. Had it not been for some strange sense of shame—some fear that too ready capitulation might be mistaken for weakness—she would have surrendered then.
"I think that is best," she managed so say. "We will let our acquaintanceship ripen."
He rose and helped her with her light wrap. His fingers touched her hand, and it seemed to him the battle was won.… But he had promised not to re-open the subject.
In the street he said, "If you will wait a moment I will take you home in my car." Their eyes met, and each of them knew what it meant. It meant announcement to her mother that she had met Dave down town. It meant, perhaps, a supposition on her mother's part that she had gone down town for that purpose. It was far-reaching. But she said simply, "I should enjoy driving home with you."
On the way they planned that the following Sunday they would drive into the foothills together. Of course they would ask Mrs. Hardy to accompany them. Of course. But it might happen that Mrs. Hardy would be indisposed. She was tired with the numerous duties incident to settling in a new home. Irene was of the opinion that what her mother needed now was rest.
As it happened, Mrs. Hardy was at the gate. She greeted Dave cordially enough; it was not possible for Mrs. Hardy to quite forget her conventional training, just as it was not possible for her to quite forget that Dave was a one-time cow puncher. Encouraged by her mood Irene determined to settle the Sunday programme at once.
"Dave was good enough to bring me up in his car," she said. "And just think! He invites us to drive into the foothills with him next Sunday. Will you come? It will be delightful. Or are you feeling——"
"Mr. Elden is very kind," said Mrs. Hardy, with dignity. "I have no doubt Mr. Conward will accompany us. He is to call this evening, and I will ask him.… Yes, I think it very likely we will go."