She knew the secret behind that story, and now she looked at David with pity.
"In my house you will meet Benjamin," the master was saying thoughtfully, evidently encountering a grave problem. "I have said that little things make the judgments of men! If a young horse shies once, though he may become a true traveler and a wise head, yet his rider remembers the first jump and is ever uneasy in the saddle."
She nodded, wondering what lay behind the explanation.
"Or if a snake crosses the road before a horse, at that place the horse trembles when he passes again."
"Yes."
She found it strangely pleasant to follow the simple processes of his mind.
"It is so with Benjamin. At some time a woman crosses his way like a snake, and because of her he has come to hate all women. And when I started for the gate, even now, he warned me against you."
The clever mind of the gambler opened to her and she smiled at the trick.
"Yes, it is a thing for laughter," said David happily. "I came with a mind armed for trouble—and I find you, whom I could break between my hands."
He turned, casting out his arms.
"What harm have I received from you?"
They had reached the head of the bridge, and even as David turned a changing gust carried to them a chorus of men's voices. David drew rein.
"There is a death," he said, "in my household."
The singing took on body and form as the pitch rose.
"There is a death," repeated David. "Abraham is dead, the oldest and the wisest of my servants. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Glory to His name!"
Ruth was touched to the heart.
"I am sorry," she said simply.
"Let us rejoice, rather, for Abraham is happy. His soul is reborn in a young body. Do you not hear them singing? Let us ride on."
He kept his head high and a stereotyped smile on his lips as the horses sprang into a gallop—that breath-taking gallop which made the spirit of the girl leap; but she saw his breast raise once or twice with a sigh. It was the stoicism of an Indian, she felt, and like an Indian's was the bronze-brown skin and the long hair blowing in the wind. The lake was beside them now, and dense forest beyond opening into pleasant meadows. She was being carried back into a primitive time of which the type was the man beside her. Riding without a saddle his body gave to the swing of the gallop, and she was more conscious than ever of physical strength.
But now the hoofs beat softly on the lawn terraces, and in a moment they had stopped before the house where the death had been. She knew at once. The empty arch into the patio of the servants' house was eloquent, in some manner, of the life that had departed. Before it was the group of singers, all standing quiet, as though their own music had silenced them, or perhaps preparing to sing again. Connor had described the old servant, but she was not prepared for these straight, withered bodies, these bony, masklike faces, and the white heads.
All in an instant they seemed to see her, and a flash of pleasure went from face to face. They stirred, they came toward her with glad murmurs, all except one, the oldest of them all, who remained aloof with his arms folded. But the others pressed close around her, talking excitedly to one another, as though she could not understand what they said. And she would never forget one who took her hand in both of his. The touch of his fingers was cold and as dry as parchment. "Honey child, God bless your pretty face."
Was this the formal talk of which Connor had warned her? A growl from David drove them back from her like leaves before a wind. He had slipped from his horse, and now walked forward.
"It is Abraham?" he asked.
"He is dead and glorious," answered the chorus, and the girl trembled to hear those time-dried relics of humanity speak so cheerily of death.
The master was silent for a moment, then: "Did he leave no message for me?"
In place of answering the group shifted and opened a passage to the one in the rear, who stood with folded arms.
"Elijah, you were with him?"
"I heard his last words."
"And what dying message for David?"
"Death sealed his lips while he had still much to say. To the end he was a man of many words. But first he returned thanks to our Father who breathed life into the clay."
"That was a proper thought, and I see that the words were words of Abraham."
"He gave thanks for a life of quiet ease and wise masters, and he forgave the Lord the length of years he was kept in this world."
"In that," said David gravely, "I seem to hear his voice speaking. Continue."
"He commanded us to sing pleasantly when he was gone."
"I heard the singing on the lake road. It is well."
"Also, he bade us keep the first master in our minds, for John, he said, was the beginning."
At this the face of David clouded a little.
"Continue. What word for David?"
Something that Connor had said about the pride and sulkiness of a child came back to Ruth.
Elijah, after hesitation, went on: "He declared that Glani is too heavy in the forehead."
"Yes, that is Abraham," said the master, smiling tenderly. "He would argue even on the death bed."
"But a cross with Tabari would remedy that defect."
"Perhaps. What more?"
"He blessed you and bade you remember and rejoice that he was gone to his wife and child."
"Ah?" cried David softly. His glance, wandering absently, rested on the girl for a moment, and then came back to Elijah. "His mind went back to that? What further for my ear?"
"I remember nothing more, David."
"Speak!" commanded the master.
The eyes of Elijah roved as though for help.
"Toward the end his voice grew faint and his mind seemed to wander."
"Far rather tremble, Elijah, if you keep back the words he spoke, however sharp they may be. My hand is not light. Remember, and speak."
The fear of Elijah changed to a gloomy pride, and now he not only raised his head, but he even made a step forward and stood in dignity.
"Death took Abraham by the throat, and yet he continued to speak. 'Tell David that four masters cherished Abraham, but David cast him out like a dog and broke his heart, and therefore he dies. Although I bless him, God will hereafter judge him!'"
A shudder went through the entire group, and Ruth herself was uneasy.
"Keep your own thoughts and the words of Abraham well divided," said David solemnly. "I know his mind and its working. Continue, but be warned."
"I am warned, David, but my brother Abraham is dead and my heart weeps for him!"
"God will hereafter judge me," said David harshly. "And what was the further judgment of Abraham, the old man?"
"Even this: 'David has opened the Garden to one and therefore it will be opened to all. The law is broken. The first sin is the hard sin and the others follow easily. It is swift to run downhill. He has brought in one, and another will soon follow.'"
"Elijah," thundered David, "you have wrested his words to fit the thing you see."
"May the dead hand of Abraham strike me down if these were not his words."
"Had he become a prophet?" muttered David. "No, it was maundering of an old man."
"God speaks on the lips of the dying, David."
"You have said enough."
"Wait!"
"You are rash, Elijah."
She could not see the face of David, but the terror and frenzied devotion of Elijah served her as mirror to see the wrath of the master of the Garden.
"David has opened the gate of the Garden. The world sweeps in and shall carry away the life of Eden like a flood. All that four masters have done the fifth shall undo."
The strength of his ecstasy slid from Elijah and he dropped upon his knees with his head weighted toward the earth. The others were frozen in their places. One who had opened his lips to speak, perhaps to intercede for the rash Elijah, remained with his lips parted, a staring mask of fear. In them Ruth saw the rage of David Eden, and she was sickened by what she saw. She had half pitied the simplicity of this man, this gull of the clever Connor. Now she loathed him as a savage barbarian. Even these old men were hardly safe from his furies of temper.
"Arise," said the master at length, and she could feel his battle to control his voice. "You are forgiven, Elijah, because of your courage—yet, beware! As for that old man whose words you repeated, I shall consider him." He turned on his heel, and Ruth saw that his face was iron.
From the gate of the patio Connor, watching all that time in a nightmare of suspense, saw, first of all, the single figure of David come around the trees, David alone and walking. But before that shock passed he saw Glani at the heels of the master, and then, farther back, Ruth!
She had passed the gate and two-thirds of the battle was fought and won. Yet all was not well, as he plainly saw. With long, swift steps David came over the terrace, and finally paused as if his thoughts had stopped him. He turned as Glani passed, and the girl came up to him; his extended arm halted Abra and he stood looking up to the girl and speaking. Only the faint murmur of his voice came unintelligibly to Connor, but he recognized danger in it as clearly as in the hum of bees. Suddenly the girl, answering, put out her hands as if in gesture of surrender. Another pause—it was only a matter of a second or so, but it was a space for life or death with Connor. In that interval he knew that his scheme was made or ruined. What had the girl said? Perhaps that mighty extended arm holding back Abra had frightened her, and with the wind blowing his long black hair aside, David of Eden was a figure wild enough to alarm her. Perhaps in fear of her life she had exposed the whole plan. If so, it meant broken bones for Connor.
But now David turned again, and this time he was talking by the side of Abra as they came up the hill. He talked with many gestures, and the girl was laughing down to him.
"God bless her!" muttered Connor impulsively. "She's a true-blue one!"
He remembered his part in the nick of time as they came closer, and David helped the girl down from the saddle and brought her forward. The gambler drew himself up and made his face grave with disapproval. Now or never he must prove to David that there was no shadow of a connection between him and the girl. Yet he was by no means easy. There was something forced and stereotyped in the smile of the girl that told him she had been through a crucial test and was still near the breaking point.
David presented them to one another uneasily. He was even a little embarrassed under the accusing eye of Connor.
"I make you known, Ruth," he said, "to my brother Benjamin. He is that man of whom I told you."
"I am happy," said the girl, "to be known to him."
"That much I cannot say," replied the gambler.
He turned upon David with outstretched arm.
"Ah, David, I have warned you!"
"As Abraham warned me against you, Benjamin. And dying men speak truth."
The counter-attack was so shrewd, so unexpected, that the gambler, for the moment, was thrown completely off his guard.
He could only murmur: "You are the judge for yourself, David."
"I am. Do not think that the power is in me. But God loves the Garden and His voice is never far from me. Neither are the spirits of the four who lived here before me and made this place. When there is danger they warn me. When I am in error the voice of God corrects me. And just as I heard the voice against the woman, Ruth, and heed it not."
He seemed to have gathered conviction for himself, much needed conviction, as he spoke. He turned now toward the girl.
"Be not wroth with Benjamin; and bear him no malice."
"I bear him none in the world," she answered truthfully, and held out her hand.
But Connor was still in his rôle. He folded his arms and pointedly disregarded the advance.
"Woman, let there be peace and few words between us. My will is the will of David."
"There speaks my brother!" cried the master of the valley.
"And yet," muttered Connor, "why is she here?"
"She came to buy a horse."
"But they are not sold."
"That is true. Yet she has traveled far and she is in great need of food and drink. Could I turn her away hungry, Benjamin?"
"She could have been fed at the gate. She could surely have rested there."
It was easy to see that David was hardpressed. His eye roved eagerly to Ruth. Then a triumphant explanation sparkled in his eye.
"It is the horse she rides, a gelding from my Garden. His lot in the world has been hard. He is scarred with the spur and the whip. I have determined to take him back, at a price. But who can arrange matters of buying and selling all in a moment? It is a matter for much talk. Therefore she is here."
"I am answered," said Connor, and turning to Ruth he winked broadly.
"It is well," said David, "and I foresee happy days. In the meantime there is a duty before me. Abraham must be laid in his grave and I leave Ruth to your keeping, Benjamin. Bear with her tenderly for my sake."
He stepped to the girl.
"You are not afraid?"
"I am not afraid," she answered.
"My thoughts shall be near you. Farewell."
He had hardly reached the gate of the patio when Joseph, going out after finishing his labor at the fountain, passed between the gambler and the girl. Connor stopped him with a sign.
"The whip hasn't fallen, you see," he said maliciously.
"There is still much time," replied Joseph. "And before the end it will fall. Perhaps on you. Or on that!"
He indicated the girl with his pointing finger; his glance turned savagely from one to the other, and then he went slowly out of the patio and they were alone. She came to Connor at once and even touched his arm in her excitement.
"What did he mean?"
"That's the one I told you about. The one David beat up with the whip. He'd give his eye teeth to get back at me, and he has an idea that there's going to be hell to pay because another person has come into the valley. Bunk! But—what happened down the hill?"
"When he stopped me? Did you see that?"
"My heart stopped the same minute. What was it?"
"He had just heard the last words of Abraham. When he stopped me on the hill his face was terrible. Like a wolf!"
"I know that look in him. How did you buck up under it?"
"I didn't. I felt my blood turn to water and I wanted to run."
"But you stuck it out—I saw! Did he say anything?"
"He said: 'Dying men do not lie. And I have been twice warned. Woman, why are you here?'"
"And you?" gasped Connor. "What did you say?"
"Nothing. My head spun. I looked up the terrace. I wanted to see you, but you weren't in sight. I felt terribly alone and absolutely helpless. If I'd had a gun, I would have reached for it."
"Thank God you didn't!"
"But you don't know what his face was like! I expected him to tear me off the horse and smash me with his hands. All at once I wanted to tell him everything—beg him not to hurt me." Connor groaned.
"I knew it! I knew that was in your head!"
"But I didn't."
"Good girl."
"He said: 'Why are you here? What harm have you come to work in the Garden?'"
"And you alone with him!" gasped Connor.
"That was what did it. I was so helpless that it made me bold. Can you imagine smiling at a time like that?"
"Were you able to?"
"I don't know how. It took every ounce of strength in me. But I made myself smile—straight into his face. Then I put out my hands to him all at once.
"'How could I harm you?' I asked him.
"And then you should have seen his face change and the anger break up like a cloud. I knew I was safe, then, but I was still dizzy—just as if I'd looked over a cliff—you know?"
"And yet you rode up the hill after that laughing down to him! Ruth, you're the gamest sport and the best pal in the world. The finest little act I ever saw on the stage or off. It was Big Time stuff. My hat's off, but—where'd you get the nerve?"
"I was frightened almost to death. Too much frightened for it to show. When I saw you, my strength came back."
"But what do you think of him?"
"He's—simply a savage. What do I think of an Indian?"
"No more than that?"
"Ben, can you pet a tiger after you've seen his claws?"
He looked at her with anxiety.
"You're not going to break down later on—feeling as if he's dynamite about to explode all the time?"
"I'm going to play the game through," she said with a sort of fierce happiness. "I've felt like a sneak thief about this. But now it's different. He's more of a wolf than a man. Ben, I saw murder in his face, I swear! And if it isn't wrong to tame wild beasts it isn't wrong to tame him. I'm going to play the game, lead him as far as I can until we get the horses—and then it'll be easy enough to make up by being good the rest of my life."
"Ruth—girl—you've covered the whole ground. And when you have the coin—" He broke off with laughter that was filled with drunken excitement. "But what did you think of my game?"
She did not hear him, and standing with her hands clasped lightly behind her she looked beyond the roof of the house and over the tops of the western mountains, with the sun-haze about them.
"I feel as if I were on the top of the world," she said at last. "And I wouldn't have one thing changed. We're playing for big stakes, but we're taking a chance that makes the game worth while. What we win we'll earn—because he's a devil. Isn't it what you'd call a fair bet?"
"The squarest in the world," said Connor stoutly.
They had no means of knowing when David would return and the ominous shadow of Joseph, lingering near the patio, determined Connor on a walk out of any possible earshot. They went down to the lake with the singing of the men on the other side of the hill growing dim as they descended. The cool of the day was beginning, and they walked close to the edge of the water with the brown treetrunks on one side and the green images floating beyond. Peace lay over Eden valley and the bright river that ran through it, but Ben Connor had no mind to dwell on unessentials.
He had found in the girl an ally of unexpected strength. He expected only a difficult tool filled with scruples, drawing back, imperiling his plans with her hesitation. Instead, she was on fire with the plan. He thought well to fan that fire and keep it steadily blazing.
"It's better for David; better for him than it is for us. Look at the poor fool! He's in prison here and doesn't know it. He thinks he's happy, but he's simply kidding himself. In six months I'll have him chatting with millionaires."
"Let a barber do a day's work on him first."
"No. It's just the long-haired nuts like that who get by with the high-steppers. He has a lingo about flowers and trees that'll knock their eye out. I know the gang. Always on edge for something different—music that sounds like a riot in a junk shop and poetry that reads like a drunken printing-press. Well, David ought to be different enough to suit 'em. I'll boost him, though: 'The Man that Brought Out the Eden Grays!' He'll be headline stuff!"
He laughed so heartily that he did not notice the quick glance of criticism which the girl cast at him.
"I'm not taking anything from him, really," went on Connor. "I'm simply sneaking around behind him so's I can pour his pockets full of the coin. That's all there is to it. Outside of the looks, tell me if there's anything crooked you can see?"
"I don't think there is," she murmured. "I almost hope that there isn't!"
She was so dubious about it that Connor was alarmed. He was fond of Ruth Manning, but she was just "different" enough to baffle him. Usually he divided mankind into three or four categories for the sake of fast thinking. There were the "boobs," the "regular guys," the "high steppers," and the "nuts." Sometimes he came perilously close to including Ruth in the last class—with David Eden. And if he did not do so, it was mainly because she had given such an exhibition of cool courage only a few moments before. He had finished his peroration, now, with a feeling of actual virtue, but the shadow on her face made him change his tactics and his talk.
He confined himself, thereafter, strictly to the future. First he outlined his plans for raising the cash for the big "killing." He told of the men to whom he could go for backing. There were "hard guys" who would take a chance. "Wise ones" who would back his judgment. "Fall guys" who would follow him blindly. For ten percent he would get all the cash he could place. Then it remained to try out the grays in secret, and in public let them go through the paces ridden under wraps and heavily weighted. He described the means of placing the big money before the great race.
And as he talked his figures mounted from tens to hundreds to thousands, until he was speaking in millions. In all of this profit she and David and Connor would share dollar for dollar. At the first corner of the shore they turned she had arrived at a snug apartment in New York. She would have a housekeeper-companion. There would be a cosy living room and a paneled dining room. In the entrance hall of the apartment house, imitation of encrusted marble, no doubt.
But as they came opposite a little wooded island in the lake she had added a maid to the housekeeper. Also, there was now a guest room. Some one from Lukin would be in that room; some one from Lukin would go through the place with her, marveling at her good fortune.
And clothes! They made all the difference. Dressed as she would be dressed, when she came into a room that queer, cold gleam of envy would be in the eyes of the women and the men would sit straighter!
Yet when they reached the place where the shore line turned north and west her imagination, spurred by Connor's talk, was stumbling along dizzy heights. Her apartment occupied a whole floor. Her butler was a miracle of dignity and her chef a genius in the kitchen. On the great table the silver and glass were things of frosted light. Her chauffeur drove a monster automobile with a great purring engine that whipped her about the city with the color blown into her cheeks. In her box at the opera she was allowing the deep, soft luxury of the fur collar to slide down from her throat, while along the boxes, in the galleries, there was a ripple of light as the thousand glasses turned upon her. Then she found that Connor was smiling at her. She flushed, but snapped her fingers.
"This thing is going through," she declared.
"You won't weaken?"
"I'm as cold as steel. Let's go back. He'll probably be in the house by this time."
Time had slipped past her unnoticed, and the lake was violet and gold with the sunset as they turned away; under the trees along the terraces the brilliant wild flowers were dimmed by a blue shadow.
"But I never saw wild flowers like those," she said to Connor.
"Nobody else ever did. But old Matthew, whoever he was, grew 'em and kept crossing 'em until he got those big fellows with all the colors of the rainbow."
"Hurry! We're late!"
"No, David's probably on top of that hill, now; always goes up there to watch the sun rise and the sun set. Can you beat that?"
He chuckled, but a shade had darkened the face of the girl for a moment. Then she lifted her head resolutely.
"I'm not going to try to understand him. The minute you understand a thing you stop being afraid of it; and as soon as I stop being afraid of David Eden I might begin to like him—which is what I don't want."
"What's that?" cried Connor, breaking in on her last words. When Ruth began to think aloud he always stopped listening; it was a maxim of his to never listen when a woman became serious.
"It's that strange giant."
"Joseph!" exclaimed Connor heavily. "Whipping did him no good. He'll need killing one of these days."
But she had already reverted to another thing.
"Do you think he worships the sun?"
"I don't think. Try to figure out a fellow like that and you get to be just as much of a nut as he is. Go on toward the house and I'll follow you in a minute. I want to talk to big Joe."
He turned aside into the trees briskly, and the moment he was out of sight of the girl he called softly: "Joseph!"
He repeated the call after a trifling wait before he saw the big man coming unconcernedly through the trees toward him. Joseph came close before he stopped—very close, as a man will do when he wishes to make another aware of his size, and from this point of vantage, he looked over Connor from head to foot with a glance of lingering and insolent criticism. The gambler was somewhat amused and a little alarmed by that attitude.
"Now, Joseph," he said, "tell me frankly why you're dodging me about the valley. Waiting for a chance to throw stones?"
His smile remained without a reflection on the stolid face of the servant.
"Benjamin," answered the deep, solemn voice, "I know all!"
It made Connor peer into those broad features as into a dim light. Then a moment of reflection assured him that Joseph could not have learned the secret.
"Haneemar, whom you know," continued Joseph, "has told me about you."
"And where," asked Connor, completely at sea, "did you learn of Haneemar?"
"From Abraham. And I know that this is the head of Haneemar."
He brought out in his palm the little watch-charm of carved ivory.
"Of course," nodded Connor, feeling his way. "And what is it that you know from Haneemar?"
"That you are evil, Benjamin, and that you have come here for evil. You entered by a trick; and you will stay here for evil purposes until the end."
"You follow around to pick up a little dope, eh?" chuckled Connor. "You trail me to find out what I intend to do? Why don't you go to David and warn him?"
"Have I forgotten the whip?" asked Joseph, his nostrils trembling with anger. "But the good Haneemar now gives me power and in the end he will betray you into my hands. That is why I follow you. Wherever you go I follow; I am even able to know what you think! But hearken to me, Benjamin. Take back the head of Haneemar and the bad luck that lives in it. Take it back, and I shall no longer follow you. I shall forget the whip. I shall be ready to do you a service."
He extended the little piece of ivory eagerly, but Connor drew back. His superstitions were under the surface of his mind, but, still, they were there, and the fear which Joseph showed was contagious.
"Why don't you throw it away if you're afraid of it, Joseph?"
"You know as I know," returned Joseph, glowering, "that it cannot be thrown away. It must be given and freely accepted, as I—oh fool—accepted it from you."
There was such a profound conviction in this that Connor was affected in spite of himself. That little trinket had been the entering wedge through which he had worked his way into the Garden and started on the road to fortune. He would rather have cut off his hand, now, than take it back.
"Find some one else to take it," he suggested cheerily. "I don't want the thing."
"Then all that Abraham told me is true!" muttered Joseph, closing his hand over the trinket. "But I shall follow you, Benjamin. When you think you are alone you shall find me by turning your head. Every day by sunrise and every day by the dark I beg Haneemar to put his curse on you. I have done you no wrong, and you have had me shamed."
"And now you're going to have me bewitched, eh?" asked Connor.
"You shall see."
The gambler drew back another pace and through the shadows he saw the beginning of a smile of animal-cunning on the face of Joseph.
"The devil take you and Haneemar together," he growled. "Remember this, Joseph. I've had you whipped once. The next time I'll have you flayed alive."
Instead of answering, Joseph merely grinned more openly, and the gambler, to forget the ape-face, wheeled and hurried out from the trees. The touch of nightmare dread did not leave him until he rejoined Ruth on the higher terrace.
They found the patio glowing with light, the table near the fountain, and three chairs around it. David came out of the shadow of the arcade to meet them, and he was as uneasy as a boy who had a surprise for grown-ups. He had not even time for a greeting.
"You have not seen your room?" he said to Ruth. "I have made it ready for you. Come!"
He led the way half a pace in front, glancing back at them as though to reprove their slowness, until he reached a door at which he turned and faced her, laughing with excitement. She could hardly believe that this man with his childish gayety was the same whose fury had terrified the servants that same afternoon.
"Close your eyes—close them fast. You will not look until I say?"
She obeyed, setting her teeth to keep from smiling.
"Now come forward—step high for the doorway. So! You are in. Now wait—now open your eyes and look!"
She obeyed again and saw first David standing back with an anxious smile and the gesture of one who reveals, but is not quite sure of its effect. Then she heard a soft, startled exclamation from Connor behind her. Last of all she saw the room.
It was as if the walls had been broken down and a garden let inside—it gave an effect of open air, sunlight and wind. Purple flowers like warm shadows banked the farther corners, and out of them rose a great vine draping the window. It had been torn bodily from the earth, and now the roots were packed with damp moss, yellow-green. It bore in clusters and single flowers and abundant bloom, each blossom as large as the mallow, and a dark gold so rich that Ruth well-nigh listened for the murmur of bees working this mine of pollen. From above, the great flowers hung down against the dull red of the sunset sky; and from below the distant treetops on the terrace pointed up with glimmers of the lake between. There was only the reflected light of the evening, now, but the cuplike blossoms were filled to the brim with a glow of their own.
She looked away.
A dapple deerskin covered the bed like the shadow under a tree in mid-day, and the yellow of the flowers was repeated dimly on the floor by a great, tawny hide of a mountain-lion. She took up some of the purple flowers, and letting the velvet petals trail over her finger tips, she turned to David with a smile. But what Connor saw, and saw with a thrill of alarm, was that her eyes were filling with tears.
"See!" said David gloomily. "I have done this to make you happy, and now you are sad!"
"Because it is so beautiful."
"Yes," said David slowly. "I think I understand."
But Connor took one of the flowers from her hand. She cried out, but too late to keep him from ripping the blossom to pieces, and now he held up a single petal, long, graceful, red-purple at the broader end and deep yellow at the narrow.
"Think of that a million times bigger," said Connor, "and made out of velvet. That'd be a design for a cloak, eh? Cost about a thousand bucks to imitate this petal, but it'd be worth it to see you in it, eh?"
She looked to David with a smile of apology for Connor, but her hand accepted the petal, and her second smile was for Connor himself.
When they went out into the patio again, David had lost a large part of his buoyancy of spirits, as though in some subtle manner Connor had overcast the triumph of the room; he left them with word that the evening meal would soon be ready and hurried off calling orders to Zacharias.
"Why did you do it?" she asked Connor as soon as they were alone.
"Because it made me mad to see a stargazer like that turning your head."
"But didn't you think the room was beautiful?"
"Sure. Like a riot in a florist's shop. But don't let this David take you off guard with his rooms full of flowers and full of silence."
"Silence?"
"Haven't I told you about his Room of Silence? That's one of his queer dodges. That room; you see? When anything bothers him he goes over and sits down in there, because—do you know what he thinks sits with him?"
"Well?"
"God!"
She was between a smile and a gasp.
"Yep, that's David," grinned Connor. "Just plain nut."
"What's inside?"
"I don't know. Maybe flowers."
"Let's find out."
He caught her arm quickly.
"Not in a thousand years!" He changed color at the thought and glanced guiltily around. "That would be the smash of everything. Why, he turned over the whole Garden of Eden to me. I can go anywhere, but not a step inside that room. It's his Holy Ground, you see! Maybe it's where he keeps his jack. And I've a hunch that he has a slough of it tucked away somewhere."
She raised her hand as an idea came to her half way through this speech.
"Listen! I have an idea that the clew to all of David's mystery is in that room!"
"Drop that idea, Ruth," he ordered gruffly. "You've seen David on one rampage, but it's nothing to what would happen if you so much as peeked into that place. When the servants pass that door they take off their hats—watch 'em the next time you have a chance. You won't make a slip about that room?"
"No." But she added: "I'd give my soul—for one look!"
Dinner that night under the stars with the whispering of the fountain beside them was a ceremony which Connor never forgot. The moon rose late and in the meantime the sky was heavy and dark with sheeted patchwork of clouds, with the stars showing here and there. The wind blew in gusts. A wave began with a whisper on the hill, came with a light rushing across the patio, and then diminished quickly among the trees down the terraces. Rough, iron-framed lanterns gave the light and showed the arcade stepping away on either side and growing dim toward the entrance. That uncertain illumination made the crude pillars seem to have only the irregularity of vast antiquity, stable masses of stone. Where the circle of lantern-light overlapped rose the fountain, a pale spray forever dissolving in the upper shadow. Connor himself was more or less used to these things, but he became newly aware of them as the girl sent quick, eager glances here and there.
She had placed a single one of the great yellow blossoms in her hair and it changed her shrewdly. It brought out the delicate coloring of her skin, and to the darkness of her eyes it lent a tint of violet. Plainly she enjoyed the scene with its newness. David, of course, was the spice to everything, and his capitulation was complete; he kept the girl always on an uneasy balance between happiness and laughter. And Connor trembled for fear the mirth would show through. But each change of her expression appeared to delight David more than the last.
Under his deft knife the choicest white meat came away from the breast of a chicken and he heaped it at once on the plate of Ruth. Then he dropped his chin upon his great brown fist and watched with silent delight while she ate. It embarrassed her; but her flush had a tinge of pleasure in it, as Connor very well knew.
"Look!" said David, speaking softly as though Ruth would not hear him. "How pleasant it is, to be three together. When we were two, one talked and the other grew weary—was it not so? But now we are complete. One speaks, one listens, and the other judges. I have been alone. The Garden of Eden has been to me a prison, at many times. And now there is nothing wanting. And why? There were many men before. We were not lacking in numbers. Yet there was an emptiness, and now comes one small creature, as delicate as a colt of three months, this being of smiles and curious glances, this small voice, this woman—and at once the gap is filled. Is it not strange?"
He cast himself back in his chair, as though he wished to throw her into perspective with her surroundings, and all the time he was staring as though she were an image, a picture, and not a thing of flesh and blood. Connor himself was on the verge of a smile, but when he saw the face of Ruth Manning his mirth disappeared in a chill of terror. She was struggling and struggling in vain against a rising tide of laughter, laughter in the face of David Eden and his sensitive pride.
It came, it broke through all bonds, and now it was bubbling from her lips. As one who awaits the falling of a blow, Connor glanced furtively at the host, and again he was startled.
There was not a shade of evil temper in the face of David. He leaned forward, indeed, with a surge of the great shoulders, but it was as one who listens to an entrancing music. And when she ceased, abruptly, he sighed.
"Speak to me," he commanded.
She murmured a faint reply.
"Again," said David, half closing his eyes. And Connor nodded a frantic encouragement to her.
"But what shall I say?"
"For the meaning of what you say," said David, "I have no care, but only for the sound. Have you heard dripping in a well, a sound like water filling a bottle and never reaching the top? It keeps you listening for an hour, perhaps, always a soft sound, but always rising toward a climax? Or a drowsy day when the wind hardly moves and the whistling of a bird comes now and then out of the trees, cool and contented? Or you pass a meadow of flowers in the warm sun and hear the ground murmur of the bees, and you think at once of the wax films of the honeycomb, and the clear golden honey? All those things I heard and saw when you spoke."
"Plain nut!" said Connor, framing the words with silent lips.
But though her eyes rested on him, apparently she did not see his face. She looked back at Connor with a wistful little half-smile.
At once David cast out both his hands toward hers.
"Ah, you are strange, new, delightful!" He stopped abruptly. Then: "Does it make you happy to hear me say these things?"
"Why do you ask me that?" she said curiously.
"Because it fills me with unspeakable happiness to say them. If I am silent and only think then I am not so pleased. When I see Glani standing on the hilltop I feel his speed in the slope of his muscles, the flaunt of his tail, the pride of his head; but when I gallop him, and the wind of his galloping strikes my face—ha, that is a joy! So it is speaking with you. When I see you I say within: 'She is beautiful!' But when I speak it aloud your lips tremble a little toward a smile, your eyes darken with pleasure, and then my heart rises into my throat and I wish to speak again and again and again to find new things to say, to say old things in new words. So that I may watch the changes in your face. Do you understand? But now you blush. Is that a sign of anger?"
"It is a sign that no other men have ever talked to me in this manner."
"Then other men are fools. What I say is true. I feel it ring in me, that it is the truth. Benjamin, my brother, is it not so? Ha!"
She was raising the wine-cup; he checked her with his eager, extended hand.
"See, Benjamin, how this mysterious thing is done, this raising of the hand.Weraise the cup to drink. An ugly thing—let it be done and forgotten. But whenshelifts the cup it is a thing to be remembered; how her fingers curve and the weight of the cup presses into them, and how her wrist droops."
She lowered the cup hastily and put her hand before her face.
"I see," said Connor dryly.
"Bah!" cried the master of the Garden. "You do not see. But you, Ruth, are you angry? Are you shamed?"
He drew down her hands, frowning with intense anxiety. Her face was crimson.
"No," she said faintly.
"He says that he sees, but he does not see," went on David. "He is blind, this Benjamin of mine. I show him my noblest grove of the eucalyptus trees, each tree as tall as a hill, as proud as a king, as beautiful as a thought that springs up from the earth. I show him these glorious trees. What does he say? 'You could build a whole town out of that wood!' Bah! Is that seeing? No, he is blind! Such a man would give you hard work to do. But I say to you, Ruth, that to be beautiful is to be wise, and industrious, and good. Surely you are to me like the rising of the sun—my heart leaps up! And you are like the coming of the night making the world beautiful and mysterious. For behind your eyes and behind your words, out of the sound of your voice and your glances, I guess at new things, strange things, hidden things. Treasures which cannot be held in the hands. Should you grow as old as Elijah, withered, meager as a grasshopper, the treasures would still be there. I, who have seen them, can never forget them!"
Once more she covered her eyes with her hand, and David started up from his chair.
"What have I done?" he asked faintly of Connor. He hurried around the table to her. "Look up! How have I harmed you?"
"I am only tired," she said.
"I am a fool! I should have known. Come!" said David.
He drew her from the chair and led her across the lawn, supporting her. At her door: "May sleep be to you like the sound of running water," murmured David.
And when the door was closed he went hastily back to Connor.
"What have I done? What have I done?" he kept moaning. "She is in pain. I have hurt her."
"Sit down," said Connor, deeply amused.
It had been a curious revelation to him, this open talk of a man who was falling in love. He remembered the way he had proposed to a girl, once: "Say, Betty, don't you think you and me would hit it off pretty well, speaking permanently?"
This flaunting language was wholly ludicrous to Connor. It was book-stuff.
David had obeyed him with childlike docility, and sat now like a pupil about to be corrected by the master.
"That point is this," explained Connor gravely. "You have the wrong idea. As far as I can make out, you like Ruth?"
"It is a weak word. Bah! It is not enough."
"But it's enough to tell her. You see, men outside of the Garden don't talk to a girl the way you do, and it embarrasses her to have you talk about her all the time."
"Is it true?" murmured the penitent David. "Then what should I have said?"
"Well—er—you might have said—that the flower went pretty well in her hair, and let it go at that."
"But it was more, more, more! Benjamin, my brother, these hands of mine picked that very flower. And I see that it has pleased her. She had taken it up and placed it in her hair. It changes her. My flower brings her close to me. It means that we have found a thing which pleases us both. Just as you and I, Benjamin, are drawn together by the love of one horse. So that flower in her hair is a great sign. I dwell upon it. It is like a golden moon rising in a black night. It lights my way to her. Words rush up from my heart, but cannot express what I mean!"
"Let it go! Let it go!" said Connor hastily, brushing his way through this outflow of verbiage, like a man bothered with gnats. "I gather what you mean. But the point is that about nine-tenths of what you think you'd better not say. If you want to talk—well, talk about yourself. That's what I most generally do with a girl. They like to hear a man say what he's done."
"Myself!" said David heavily. "Talk of a dead stump when there is a great tree beside it? Well, I see that I have much to learn."
"You certainly have," said Connor with much meaning. "I'd hate to turn you loose in Manhattan."
"In what?"
"Never mind. But here's another thing. You know that she'll have to leave pretty soon?"
The meaning slowly filtered into David's mind.
"Benjamin," he said slowly, "you are wise in many ways, with horses and with women, it seems. But that is a fool's talk. Let me hear no more of it. Leave me? Why should she leave me?"
Triumph warmed the heart of Connor.
"Because a girl can't ramble off into the mountains and put up in a valley where there are nothing but men. It isn't done."
"Why not?"
"Isn't good form."
"I fail to understand."
"My dear fellow, she'd be compromised for life if it were known that she had lived here with us."
David shook his head blankly.
"In one word," said Connor, striving to make his point, "she'd be pointed out by other women and by men. They'd never have anything to do with her. They'd say things that would make her ashamed, hurt her, you know."
Understanding and wrath gathered in David's face.
"To such a man—to such a dog of a man—I would talk with my hands!"
"I think you would," nodded Connor, not a little impressed. "But you might not be around to hear the talk."
"But women surely live with men. There are wives—"
"Ah! Man and wife—all very well!"
"Then it is simple. I marry her and then I keep her here forever."
"Perhaps. But will she marry you?"
"Why not?"
"Well, does she love you?"
"True." He stood up. "I'll ask her."
"For Heaven's sake, no! Sit down! You mustn't rush at a woman like this the first day you know her. Give her time. Let me tell you when!"
"Benjamin, my dear brother, you are wise and I am a fool!"
"You'll do in time. Let me coach you, that's all, and you'll come on famously. I can tell you this: that I think she likes you very well already."
"Your words are like a shower of light, a fragrant wind. Benjamin, I am hot with happiness! When may I speak to her?"
"I don't know. She may have guessed something out of what you said to-night." He swallowed a smile. "You might speak to her about this marriage to-morrow."
"It will be hard; but I shall wait."
"And then you'll have to go out of the Garden with her to get married."
"Out of the Garden? Never! Why should we?"
"Why, you'll need a minister, you know, to marry you."
"True. Then I shall send for one."
"But he might not want to make this long journey for the sake of one marriage ceremony."
"There are ways, perhaps, of persuading him to come," said David, making a grim gesture.
"No force or you ruin everything."
"I shall be ruled by you, brother. It seems I have little knowledge."
"Go easy always and you'll come out all right. Give her plenty of time. A woman always needs a lot of time to make up her mind, and even then she's generally wrong."
"What do you mean by that?"
"No matter. She'll probably want to go back to her home for a while."
"Leave me?"
"Not necessarily. But you, when a man gets engaged, it's sometimes a couple of years between the time a woman promises to marry him and the day of the ceremony."
"Do they wait so long, and live apart?"
"A thousand miles, maybe."
"Then you men beyond the mountains are made of iron!"
"Do you have to be away from her? Why not go along with her when she goes home?"
"Surely, Benjamin, you know that a law forbids it!"
"You make your own laws in important things like this."
"It cannot be."
And so the matter rested when Connor left his host and went to bed. He had been careful not to press the point. So unbelievably much ground had been covered in the first few hours that he was dizzy with success. It seemed ages since that Ruth had come running to him in the patio in terror of her life. From that moment how much had been done!
Closing his eyes as he lay on his bed, he went back over each incident to see if a false step had been made. As far as he could see, there had not been a single unsound measure undertaken. The first stroke had been the masterpiece. Out of a danger which had threatened instant destruction of their plan she had won complete victory by her facing of David, and when she put her hand in his as a sign of weakness, Connor could see that she had made David her slave.
As the scene came back vividly before his eyes he could not resist an impulse to murmur aloud to the dark: "Brave girl!"
She had grown upon him marvelously in that single half-day. The ability to rise to a great situation was something which he admired above all things in man or woman. It was his own peculiar power—to judge a man or a horse in a glance, and dare to venture a fortune on chance. Indeed, it was hardly a wonder that David Eden or any other man should have fallen in love with her in that one half-day. She was changed beyond recognition from the pale girl who sat at the telegraph key in Lukin and listened to the babble of the world. Now she was out in that world, acting on the stage and proving herself worthy of a rôle.
He rehearsed her acts. And finally he found himself flushing hotly at the memory of her mingled pleasure and shame and embarrassment as David of Eden had poured out his amazing flow of compliments.
At this point Connor sat up suddenly and violently in his bed.
"Steady, Ben!" he cautioned himself. "Watch your step!"
Ben Connor awoke the next morning with the sun streaming across the room and sprang out of bed at once, worried. For about dawn noises as a rule began around the house and the singing of the old men farther down the hill. The Garden of Eden awakened at sunrise, and this silence even when the sun was high alarmed the gambler. He dressed hastily, and opening his door, he saw David walking slowly up and down the patio. At the sight of Connor he raised a warning finger.
"Let us keep a guard upon our voices," he murmured, coming to Connor. "I have ordered my servants to move softly and to keep from the house if they may."
"What's happened?"
"She sleeps, Benjamin." He turned toward her door with a smile that the gambler never forgot. "Let her waken rested."
Connor looked at the sky.
"I've come too late for breakfast, even?"
A glance of mild rebuke was turned upon him.
"Surely, Benjamin, we who are strong will not eat before her who is weak?"
"Are you going to starve yourself because she's sleepy?"
"But I have not felt hunger."
He added in a voice of wonder: "Listen!"
Ruth Manning was singing in her room, and Connor turned away to hide his frown. For he was not by any means sure whether the girl sang from the joy she found in this great adventure or because of David Eden. He was still further troubled when she came out to the breakfast table in the patio. He had expected that she would be more or less confused by the presence of David after his queer talk of the night before, but sleep seemed to have wiped everything from her memory. Her first nod, to be sure, was for the gambler, but her smile was for David of Eden. Connor fell into a reverie which was hardly broken through the meal by the deep voice of David or the laughter of Ruth. Their gayety was a barrier, and he was, subtly, left on the outside. David had proposed to the girl a ride through the Garden, and when he went for the horses the gambler decided to make sure of her position. He was too much disturbed to be diplomatic. He went straight to the point.
"I'm sorry this is such a mess for you; but if you can buck up for a while it won't take long to finish the job."
She looked at him without understanding, which was what he least wanted in the world. So he went on: "As a matter of fact, the worst of the job hasn't come. You can do what you want with him right now. But afterward—when you get him out of the valley the hard thing will be to hold him."
"You're angry with poor David. What's he done now?"
"Angry with him? Of course not! I'm a little disgusted, that's all."
"Tell me why in words of one syllable, Ben."
"You're too fine a sort to have understood. And I can't very well explain."
She allowed herself to be puzzled for a moment and then laughed.
"Please don't be mysterious. Tell me frankly."
"Very well. I think you can make David go out of the valley when we go. But once we have him back in a town the trouble will begin. You understand why he's so—fond of you, Ruth?"
"Let's not talk about it."
"Sorry to make you blush. But you see, it isn't because you're so pretty, Ruth, but simply because you're a woman. The first he's ever seen."
All her high coloring departed at once; a pale, sick face looked at Connor.
"Don't say it," murmured the girl. "I thought last night just for a moment—but I couldn't let myself think of it for an instant."
"I understand," said Connor gently. "You took all that highfaluting poetry stuff to be the same thing. But, say, Ruth, I've heard a young buck talk to a young squaw—before he married her. Just about the same line of junk, eh? What makes me sick is that when we get him out in a town he'll lose his head entirely when he sees a room full of girls. We'll simply have to plant a contract on him and—then let him go!"
"Do you think it's only that?" she said again, faintly.
"I leave it to you. Use your reason, and figure it out for yourself. I don't mean that you're in any danger. You know you're not as long as I'm around!"
She thanked him with a wan smile.
"But how can I let him come near me—now?"
"It's a mess. I'm sorry about it. But once the deal goes through I'll make this up to you if it takes me the rest of my life. You believe me?"
"I know you're true blue, Ben! And—I trust you."
He was a little disturbed to find that his pulse was decidedly quickened by that simple speech.
"Besides, I want to thank you for letting me know this. I understand everything about him now!"
In her heart of hearts she was hating David with all her might. For all night long, in her dreams, she had been seeing again the gestures of those strong brown hands, and the flash of his eyes, and hearing the deep tremor of his voice. The newness of this primitive man and his ways and words had been an intoxicant to her; because of his very difference she was a little afraid, and now the warning of Connor chimed in accurately with a premonition of her own. That adulation poured at the feet of Ruth Manning had been a beautiful and marvelous thing; but flung down simply in honor of her sex it became almost an insult. The memory made her shudder. The ideal lover whom she had prefigured in some of her waking dreams had always spoken with ardor—a holy ardor. From this passion of the body she recoiled.
Something of all this Connor read in her face and in her thoughtful silence, and he was profoundly contented. He had at once neutralized all of David's eloquence and fortified his own position. It was both a blow driven home and a counter. Not that he would admit a love for the girl; he had merely progressed as far as jealousy. He told himself that his only interest was in keeping her from an emotion which, once developed, might throw her entirely on the side of David and ruin their joint plans. He had refused to accompany the master of the Garden and the girl on their ride through the valley because, as he told himself, he "couldn't stand seeing another grown man make such an ass of himself" as David did when he was talking with the girl.
He contented himself now with watching her face when David came back to the patio, followed by Glani and the neat-stepping little mare, Tabari. The forced smile with which she met the big man was a personal triumph to the gambler.
"If you can win her under that handicap, David," he said softly to himself, "you deserve her, and everything else you can get."
David helped her into the saddle on Tabari, and himself sprang onto the pad upon Glani's back. They went out side by side.
It was a cool day for that season, and the moment the north wind struck them David shouted softly and sent Glani at a rushing gallop straight into the teeth of the wind. Tabari followed at a pace which Ruth, expert horse-woman though she was, had never dreamed of. For the first time she had that impression of which Ben Connor had spoken to her of the horse pouring itself over the road without strain and without jar of smashing hoofs.
Ruth let Tabari extend herself, until the mare was racing with ears flat against her neck. She had even an impression that Glani, burdened by the great weight of David, was being left behind, but when she glanced to the side she saw that the master half a length back, was keeping a strong pull on the stallion, and Glani went smoothly, easily, with enormous strides, and fretting at the restraint.
She gained two things from that glance. The first was a sense of impatience because the stallion kept up so easily; in the second place, the same wind which drove the long hair of David straight back blew all suspicious thoughts out of her mind. She drew Tabari back to a hand gallop and then to a walk with her eyes dimmed by the wind of the ride and the blood tingling in her cheeks.
"It was like having wings," she cried happily as David let the stallion come up abreast.
"Tabari is sturdy, but she lacks speed," said the dispassionate master. "When she was a foal of six months and was brought to me for judgment, I thought twice, because her legs were short. However, it is well that she was allowed to live and breed."
"Allowed to live?" murmured Ruth Manning.
"To keep the line of the gray horse perfect," said David, "they must be watched with a jealous eye, and those which are weak must not live. The mares are killed and the stallions gelded and sold."
"And can you judge the little colts?"
Her voice was too low for David to catch a sense of pain and anger in it.
"It must be done. It is a duty. To-day is the sixth month of Timeh, the daughter of Juri. You shall witness the judging. Elijah is the master."
His face hardened at the name of Elijah, and the girl caught her breath. But before she could speak they broke out of a grove and came in view of a wide meadow across which four yoked cattle drew a harrow, smoothing the plow furrows to an even, black surface.
It carried the girl far back; it was like opening an ancient book of still more ancient tales; the musty smell completes the illusion. The cattle plodding slowly on, seeming to rest at every step, filled in the picture of which the primitive David Eden was the central figure.
"Yokes," she cried. "I've never seen them before!"
"For some work we use the horses, but the jerking of the harrow ruins their shoulders. Besides, we may need the cattle for a new journey."
"A journey? With those?"
"That was how the four came into the Garden. And I am enjoined to have the strong wagons always ready and the ox teams always complete in case it becomes necessary to leave this valley and go elsewhere. Of course, that may never be."