CHAPTER XVA HIGHGRADER—IN PRINCIPLE
In spite of the warm defense she had made of Kilmeny, the heart of Moya was troubled. She knew him to be reckless. The boundaries of ethical conduct were not the same for him as for Lord Farquhar, for instance. He had told her as much in those summer days by the Gunnison when they were first adventuring forth to friendship. His views on property and on the struggle between capital and labor were radical. Could it be that they carried him as far as this, that he would take ore to which others had title?
The strange phase of the situation was that nobody in Goldbanks seemed to give any consideration to the moral issue. If rumor were true, the district attorney and a good many of the business men of the town were engaged in disposing of this ore for the miners on a percentage basis. Between the miners and the operating companies was war. If a workman could get the better of the owners by taking ore that was a point to his credit. Even Verinder and Bleyer at bottom regarded the matteras a question of strength and not as one of equity.
Moya was still in process of thinking herself and life out. It was to her an amazing thing that a whole community should so lose its sense of values as to encourage even tacitly what was virtually theft. She did not want to pass judgment upon Goldbanks, for she distrusted her horizon as narrow. But surely right was right and wrong wrong. Without a stab of pain she could not think of Jack Kilmeny as engaged in this illicit traffic.
In her heart she was afraid. Bleyer was a man to be trusted, and in effect he had said that her friend was a highgrader. Even to admit a doubt hurt her conscience as a disloyalty, but her gropings brought no certainty of his innocence. It would be in keeping with the man's character, as she read it, not to let fear of the consequences hold him from any course upon which he was determined. Had he not once warned her in his whimsical smiling way that she would have to make "a heap of allowances" for him if she were to remain his friend? Was it this to which he had referred when he had told her he was likely to disappoint her, that a man must live by the code of his fellows and judge right and wrong by the circumstances? Explicitly he had given her to understand that his standards of honesty would not square with hers, since he lived in a rough mining camp where questionshad two sides and were not to be determined by abstract rule.
As for Joyce, the charges against Kilmeny did not disturb her in the least. He might be all they said of him and more; so long as he interested her that was enough. Just now her head was full of the young man. In the world of her daydreams many suitors floated nebulously. Past and present she had been wooed by a sufficient number. But of them all not one had moved her pulses as this impossible youth of the unmapped desert West had done. Queer errant impulses tugged at her well-disciplined mind and stormed the creed of worldliness with which she had fenced her heart.
A stroll to view the sunset had been arranged by the young people up what was known as Son-of-a-Gun Hill. Moya walked of course with Captain Kilmeny, her betrothed. Joyce saw to it that Verinder was paired with India, Jack Kilmeny falling to her lot. Since India knew that her escort was eager to get with Miss Seldon, she punished his impatience by loitering far behind the others.
During the past few days Jack had pushed his tentative suit boldly but lightly. He understood that Joyce was flirting with him, but he divined that there had been moments when the tide of her emotion had swept the young woman from her feet. She was a coquette, of course, but when his eyes fell like a plummet into hers they sounded depthsbeneath the surface foam. At such times the beat of the surf sounded in his blood. The spell of sex, with all its fire and passion, drew him to this lovely creature so prodigal of allure.
The leading couples stood for a moment's breathing space near the summit. Beneath them the squalid little town huddled in the draw and ran sprawling up the hillsides. Shaft-houses and dumps disfigured even the business street.
Joyce gave a laughing little shudder. "Isn't it a horrid little hole?"
Jack looked at her in surprise, but it was Moya that answered.
"Oh, I don't think so, Joyce. Of course it's not pretty, but—doesn't it seem to stand for something big and—well, indomitable? Think of all the miles of tunnels and stopes, of all the work that has gone into making them." She stopped to laugh at her own enthusiasm before she added: "Goldbanks stands to me for the hope in the human heart that rises in spite of everything. It is the product of an idea."
Miss Seldon gave a little lift to her superb shoulders. "You're incurably romantic, Moya. It's only a scramble for money, after all."
"Don't know about that, Miss Seldon," disagreed Captain Kilmeny. "Of course it's gold they all want. But gold stands for any number of good things, tangible and abstract—success, you know,and home, and love, and kiddies, the better development of the race—all that sort of thing."
"Is that what it means to the highgraders too?" Joyce let her smiling eyes rest with innocent impudence in those of the miner.
Kilmeny showed no sign of discomfiture. His gaze met hers fully and steadily. "Something of that sort, I suppose."
"Just whatisa highgrader?"
Moya held her breath. The debonair lightness of the question could not rob it of its significance. Nobody but Joyce would have dared such a home thrust.
Jack laughed dryly. "A highgrader is a miner who saves the company for which he works the trouble of having valuable ore smelted."
"But doesn't the ore belong to the company?"
"There's a difference of opinion about that. Legally it does, morally it doesn't—not all of it. The man who risks his life and the support of his family by working underground is entitled to a share of the profit, isn't he?"
"He gets his wages, doesn't he?"
"Enough to live on—if he doesn't want to live too high. But is that all he is entitled to? Your friend"—he waved a hand toward Verinder, puffing up the trail a hundred yards below—"draws millions of dollars in dividends from the work of these men. What does he do to earn it?"
"You're a socialist," charged Joyce gayly. "Or is it an anarchist that believes such dreadful things?"
"Mr. Kilmeny doesn't quite believe all he says," suggested Moya quietly.
"Don't I?" Behind Jack's quizzical smile there was a hint of earnestness. "I believe that Dobyans Verinder is a parasite in Goldbanks. He gobbles up the product of others' toil."
Joyce flashed at him a swift retort. "Then if you believe that, you ought to be a highgrader yourself."
"Joyce," reproved Moya, aghast.
"I mean, of course, in principle," her friend amended, blushing slightly at her own audacity.
Her impudence amused the miner. "Perhaps I am—in principle."
"But only in principle," she murmured, tilting a radiant challenge at him.
"Exactly—in principle," he agreed. There was humor in his saturnine face.
Joyce ventured one daring step further. "But of course in practice——"
"You should have been a lawyer, Miss Seldon," he countered. "If you were, my reply would be that by advice of counsel I must decline to answer."
"Oh, by advice of counsel! Dear me, thatsounds dreadfully legal, doesn't it, Moya? Isn't that what criminals say when——?"
"——When they don't want to give themselves away. I believe it is," he tossed back with the same lightness. "Before I make confession I shall want to know whether you are on my side—or Verinder's."
Under the steady look of his bold, possessive eyes the long silken lashes fell to the soft cheeks. Joyce understood the unvoiced demand that lay behind the obvious one. He had thrown down the gage of battle. Was she for Verinder or for him? If he could have offered her one-half the advantages of his rival, her answer would not have been in doubt. But she knew she dared not marry a poor man, no matter how wildly his presence could set her pulses flying or how great her longing for him. Not the least intention of any romantic absurdity was in her mind. When the time came for choice she would go to Verinder and his millions. But she did not intend to let Jack Kilmeny go yet.
She lifted to him a face flushed and excited, answering apparently his words and not his thoughts. "I haven't decided yet. How can I tell till I hear what you have to say for yourself?"
"You couldn't find a more charming sister confessor for your sins," the captain told his cousin.
"I'll do my best," Joyce promised. Then, with a flash of friendly malice: "But I haven't had theexperience of Moya. She is just perfect in the rôle. I know, because she hears all mine."
Moya flushed resentfully. She did not intend to set up for a prude, but she certainly did not mean to treat highgrading as if it were a joke. If Jack Kilmeny was innocent, why did he not indignantly deny the charge?
"Afraid I'll have to be excused," she said, a little stiffly.
"Miss Dwight doesn't approve of me," explained the miner. "If I confessed to her she would probably turn me over to the sheriff."
The girl's quick eyes flashed into his. "I don't approve of taking ore that doesn't belong to one—if that's what you mean, Mr. Kilmeny."
Jack liked the flare of temper in her. She was very human in her impulses. At bottom, too, he respected the integrity of mind that refused to compromise with what she thought was wrong.
But no admission of this showed in his strong brown face. His mordant eyes mocked her while he went into a whimsical argument to show that highgrading was really a virtue, since it tended to keep the rich from growing richer and the poor poorer. He wanted to know by what moral right Verinder owned the Mollie Gibson and the Never Quit any more than he did.
The mine owner, puffing from the exertions of the last bit of ascent, exclaimed indignantly: "Own'em, by Jove! Doesn't a Johnny own what he buys and pays for?"
"You don't suppose that when God or Nature or the First Cause created that ore vein a million years ago he had Dobyans Verinder in mind as the owner," derided Kilmeny.
"That's all anarchistic rot, you know. Those mines are my property, at least a commanding interest. They're mine because I bought the shares. Government is founded on a respect for property rights."
"So I've observed," retorted Jack dryly. "I'd back that opinion, too, if I owned half of Goldbanks."
"I suppose Mr. Kilmeny's highgrading friends are superior to law. It isn't necessary for them to abide by the rules society has found best for its protection," Moya suggested.
The engaging smile of the accused rested upon Miss Dwight. "I met you and your friends in a motor car yesterday. I'll bet that speedometer said twenty-five miles, but the town ordinance puts the speed limit at fifteen. What about that?"
"You know that's different. No moral question was involved. But when it comes to taking what belongs to another—well, a thief is a thief."
"Right as a rivet, Miss Dwight. But you're begging the question.Doesthat ore belong to Dobyans Verinder any more than it does to—well,to Jack Kilmeny, say for the sake of argument? I go down there and risk my life blasting it out. He——"
"But you don't," interrupted Moya.
"Not to-day perhaps—or yesterday. But I did last year and the year before that. I've brought up in my arms the bodies of men torn to pieces and carried them to their wives and kiddies. How about those women and children? Haven't they earned an interest in the mine? Isn't their moral claim greater than that of Mr. Verinder, who sits in London and draws the dividends?"
"They are pensioned, aren't they?"
"They are not," returned Jack curtly. "The mine owners of Goldbanks don't believe in encouraging negligence. If these workmen hadn't taken chances they probably would not have been killed, you see. But if they didn't take chances none of the men could earn a living for their families. It is plain how very much to blame they are."
Moya looked across the summits of the hills into the brilliant sunset that lay like a wonderful canvas in the crotch of the peaks. A troubled little frown creased her forehead. For the first time there had come home to her the injustice of the social system under which she and her friends thrived. No adequate answer came to her. Verinder and Joyce joined in argument against the young miner, but Moya did not hear what they said.
She was unusually silent on the way home. Once she looked up and asked Captain Kilmeny a question.
"After all, two wrongs don't make a right, do they?"
"No, dear girl. Life's full of injustice. I dare say some of the men I lead are better than Ned Kilmeny, but I've got to forget that and sit tight in the seat that's been dealt me by the cards. If Jack is trying to justify highgrading, he hasn't a leg to stand on."
She sighed. "You don't think, do you, that——?"
He answered her broken sentence. "Don't know. He doesn't play the game by the same rules we do, but my judgment is that the gossip about him has no basis of fact."
The girl he loved gave him one grateful look and fell again into silence. She wished she felt more sure. Only that morning she had read an editorial in one of the local papers warning the men that the operators were determined to suppress highgrading at any cost, even if some of the more flagrant offenders had to be sent to the penitentiary. That such a fate could befall Jack Kilmeny was unthinkable. Yet what more likely than that the managers should choose him for an example if they could prove him guilty?
The dusk had fallen over the hills and the lightswere glimmering out from the town below through the growing darkness. Captain Kilmeny walked beside his slim, tall, worshipful sweetheart with a heavy heart. She was his promised bride. That she would keep faith he did not doubt. But the progress that he made in winning her love was so little that he seemed to himself to be marking time. The shadow of his vagabond cousin still lay between them.
CHAPTER XVIONE MAID—TWO MEN
Jack saw to it that he and Joyce followed the others down the trail at a very leisurely pace. The early night of the Rockies was already cutting them off from the rest of the world. Captain Kilmeny and his betrothed could be seen as shadows growing every minute more tenuous. India and her escort were already lost in the descending darkness.
It was the first time that the Goldbanks miner had ever been alone with Miss Seldon. He meant to make the most of his chance. Her loveliness sang its way through his alert, masterful eyes into the blood of the man. Where else under heaven could a woman be found with such a glory of amber extravagance for hair, with such exquisitely turned scarlet lips in so fine-textured colorless a skin of satin? She moved with the lightness of perfect health, the long, graceful lines of her limbs breaking into new curves at every step. Sinuous and supple, she was exquisitely feminine to the finger tips.
They talked little, and that irrelevantly. In bothof them the tide of emotion ran full. Each was drawn by the subtle irresistible magnet of sex attraction. When their eyes met it was but for an instant. A shyness, delirious and delightful, ran like a golden thread through the excitement which burned their blood.
"We ... must hurry." Joyce breathed deep, as if she had been running.
"Why must we?" he demanded. "This is my hour. I claim it."
"But ... they're getting ahead of us."
"Let them." He gave her his hand to help her down a steep place in the trail. Their fingers laced, palm clinging to palm.
"You ... mustn't," she protested.
"Mustn't I?"
"No-o."
The note of faintness was in her voice. Courage flooded him in triumphant waves. A moment and his arms were about her, the velvet of her cheek against his. She lay still for an instant, pulses throbbing wildly. But when his lips found hers the woman in her awoke. In an ecstasy of tenderness her arms crept around his neck, and she clung to him. A distant sea surf roared in her ears. For the first time in her life passion had drowned coquetry.
They spoke in kisses, in caresses, in little murmured nothings, as lovers will till the end of time.Something sweet and turbulent swelled in her bosom, an emotion new and inexplicable. For the first time in many experiences of the sex duel she was afraid of herself, of the strength of this impassioned feeling that was sweeping her. She disengaged herself from his embrace and stood back.
Beneath the quick probe of his eyes a faint tremor passed through her body. The long lashes fell to the hot cheeks and curtained lambent windows of light.
"What are we doing?" she cried softly.
"Doing? I'm making love to you, sweetheart, and you're telling me you love me for it," he answered, capturing her hands.
"Yes, but ... I don't want you to ... make love to me ... that way."
"You do." He laughed aloud, and with a swift motion drew her to him again. "We belong, you witch."
His ardent kisses smothered her and drew the color into her lovely face. She yearned toward him, faint with a sweet, exquisite longing. Was this love then? Had it at last trapped her in spite of her cool wariness? She did not know. All she was sure of was that she wanted to be in his strong arms and to feel forever this champagne leap of the blood.
*****
With the excuse that she must dress for dinner,Joyce went at once to her room and locked the door. Discarding the walking suit she was wearing, she slipped into a negligee gown and seated herself before the glass. She liked, while thinking things over, to look at herself in the mirror. The picture that she saw always evoked pleasant fugitive memories. It was so now. Never had her beauty seemed so radiant and vital, so much an inspiration of the spirit in her. Joyce could have kissed the parted scarlet lips and the glowing pansy eyes reflected back to her. It was good to be young and lovely, to know that men's hearts leaped because of her, especially that of the untamed desert son who had made love to her so masterfully.
How had he dared? She was a rare imperious queen of hearts. No man before had ever ravished kisses from her in such turbulent fashion. When she thought of the abandon with which she had given herself to his lips and his embrace, the dye deepened on her cheeks. What was this shameless longing that had carried her to him as one looking down from a high tower is drawn to throw himself over the edge? He had trampled under foot the defenses that had availed against many who had a hundred times his advantages to offer.
It was of herself, not him, that she was afraid. She hadwantedhis kisses. She had rejoiced in that queer, exultant stir of the blood when his eyes stabbed fathoms deep into hers. What was thematter with her? Always she had felt a good-natured contempt for girls who threw away substantial advantages for what they called love. After steering a course as steady as a mariner's compass for years was she going to play the fool at last? Was she going to marry a pauper, a workingman, one accused of crime, merely because of the ridiculous emotion he excited in her?
The idea was of course absurd. The most obvious point of the situation to her was that she dared not marry him. In her sober senses she would not want to do such a ruinous thing. Already she was beginning to escape from the thrill of his physical presence. He had taken the future for granted, and during that mad quarter of an hour she had let him. Carried away by his impetuosity and her own desire, she had consented to his preposterous hopes. But of a certainty the idea was absurd. Joyce Seldon was the last woman in the world to make a poor man's wife.
To-morrow she must have a serious talk with him and set the matter on a proper footing. She must not let herself be swept away by any quixotic sentiment. The trouble was that she liked him so well. When they met, her good resolutions would be likely to melt in the air. She would safeguard herself from her weakness by telling him during a ride that had been planned. With her friends afew yards in front of them there could be no danger of yielding to her febrile foolishness.
Or perhaps it would be better to wait. It was now only ten days till the time set for leaving. She might write him her decision. It would be sweet to hold him as long as she could....
A knock at the door aroused her from revery. She let Fisher in and made preparations to have her hair dressed. This was always one of the important duties of the day. India and Moya might scamp such things on the plea that they were thousands of miles from civilization, but Joyce knew what was due her lovely body and saw that the service was paid rigorously. She chose to wear to-night a black gown that set off wonderfully the soft beauty of her face and the grace of her figure. Jack Kilmeny was to be there later for bridge, and before he came she had to dazzle and placate Verinder, who had been for several days very sulky at having to play second fiddle.
When Joyce sailed down the corridor to the parlor which adjoined the private dining-room of the party, she caught a glimpse of Verinder turning a corner of the passage toward his room. Lady Farquhar was alone in the parlor.
"Didn't I see Mr. Verinder going out?" asked Joyce, sinking indolently into the easiest chair and reaching for a magazine.
"Yes. At least he was here." After a momentLady Farquhar added quietly, "He leaves to-morrow."
Joyce looked up quickly. "Leaves where?"
"Goldbanks. He is starting for London."
"But.... What about the reorganization of the companies? I thought...."
"He has changed his plans. James is to have his proxies and to arrange the consolidation. Mr. Verinder is anxious to get away at once."
After an instant's consideration Joyce laughed scornfully. She was dismayed by this sudden move, but did not intend to show it. "Isn't this rather ... precipitous? We're all going in a few days. Why can't he wait?"
Her chaperone looked at Joyce as she answered. "Urgent business, he says."
"Urgent fiddlesticks!" Joyce stifled a manufactured yawn. "I dare say we bore him as much as he does us. Wish we were all back in grimy old London."
"It won't be long now." Lady Jim answered with a smile at the other suggestion. "No, I don't think business calls him, and I don't think he is bored."
Joyce understood the significance of the retort. Verinder at last had revolted against being played with fast and loose. He was going because of her violent flirtation with Jack Kilmeny. This was his declaration of independence.
Miss Seldon was alarmed. She had not for a minute intended to let the millionaire escape. The very possibility of it frightened her. It had not occurred to her that the little man had spirit enough to resent her course so effectively. With the prospect of losing it in sight, his great wealth loomed up to dwarf the desire of the hour. She blamed herself because in the excitement of her affair with Kilmeny she had for the first time in her life let herself forget real values.
But Joyce was too cool a hand to waste time in repining so long as there was a chance to repair the damage. Was the lost prize beyond recovery? Two points were in her favor. Verinder had not yet gone, and he was very much infatuated with her. No doubt his vanity was in arms. He would be shy of any advances. His intention was to beat a retreat in sulky dignity, and he would not respond to any of the signals which in the past had always brought him to heel. It all rested on the fortuity of her getting five minutes alone with him. Granted this, she would have a chance. There are ways given to women whereby men of his type can be placated. She would have to flatter him by abasing herself, by throwing herself upon his mercy. But since this must be done, she was prepared to pay the price.
It appeared that Dobyans Verinder did not intend to give her an opportunity. From the soupto the walnuts the topic of conversation had to do with the impending departure of the mine owner. Joyce was prepared to be very kind to him, but he did not for an instant let his eyes dwell in hers. Behind the curtain of her dark silken lashes she was alertly conscious of the man without appearing to be so. He meant to snub her, to leave without seeing her alone. That was to be her punishment for having cut too deep into his self-esteem. He was going to jilt her.
During dinner and during that subsequent half hour while the ladies waited for the men to rejoin them, Joyce was in a tremor of anxiety. But she carried herself with an indifference that was superb. She had taken a chair at the far end of the long parlor close to a French window opening upon a porch. Apparently she was idly interested in a new novel, but never had she been more watchful. If she had a chance to play her hand she would win; if the luck broke against her she would lose.
Most of her friends had mothers to maneuver for them. Joyce had none, but she was not one to let that stand in her way. Already she had made her first move by asking Lord Farquhar in a whisper not to linger long over the cigars. He had nodded silently, and she knew he would keep his word. If Jack would only stay away until she could see Verinder....
She called the mine owner to her the instant that the men reappeared. He looked across the room sullenly and appeared for one dubious moment to hesitate. But before he could frame an excuse she had spoken again.
"I want you to see this ridiculous illustration. It is the most amusing...."
Without any hesitation she had summoned him before them all. He could not rudely refuse her the ordinary civilities that pass current in society. Sulkily he moved to her side.
She held up the book to him. No illustration met the eyes of the surprised man. Joyce was pointing to a sentence in the story heavily underscored by a pencil.
"Why are you so cruel to me?"
His chin dropped with amazement. Then slowly an angry flush rose to his face. His jaw set firmly as he looked at her.
"Yes, it's certainly ridiculous ... and amusing," he said aloud.
"There's another, too," she went on quickly, recovering the book.
Her fingers turned a page or two swiftly. On the margin was a penciled note.
"I must see you alone, Dobyans. I must."
She lifted to him a face flushed and eager, from which wounded eyes filmy with tears appealed to him. Her shyness, her diffidence, the childlike callupon his chivalry were wholly charming. She was a distractingly pretty woman, and she had thrown herself upon his mercy. Verinder began insensibly to soften, but he would not give up his grievance.
"It's amusing, too—and unnecessary, I think," he said.
The long lashes fluttered tremulously to her cheeks. It seemed to him that she was on the verge of unconsciousness, that the pent emotion was going to prove too much for her.
"I—I think the story calls for it," she answered, a little brokenly.
He retorted, still carrying on the conversation that was to mean one thing to the others in case they heard and another to them. "Depends on the point of view, I suppose. The story is plain enough—doesn't need any more to carry its meaning."
He was standing between her and the rest of the party. Joyce laid an appealing hand on his coat sleeve. Tears brimmed over from the soft eyes. She bit her lip and turned her head away. If ever a woman confessed love without words Joyce was doing it now. Verinder's inflammable heart began to quicken.
"Where?" he asked grudgingly, lowering his voice.
A glow of triumphant relief swept through her. She had won. But the very nearness of her defeat tempered pride to an emotion still related to gratitude.The warm eyes that met his were alive with thanks. She moved her head slightly toward the window.
In another moment they stood outside, alone in the darkness. The night was chill and she shivered at the change from the warm room. Verinder stepped back into the parlor, stripped from the piano the small Navajo rug that draped it, and rejoined Joyce on the porch. He wrapped it about her shoulders.
She nodded thanks and led him to the end of the porch. For a few moments she leaned on the railing and watched the street lights. Then, abruptly, she shot her question at him.
"Why are you going away?"
Stiff as a poker, he made answer. "Business in London, Miss Seldon. Sorry to leave and all that, but——"
She cut him off sharply. "I want the truth. What have I done that you should ... treat me so?"
Anger stirred in him again. "Did I say you had done anything?"
"But you think I'm to blame. You know you do."
"Do I?" His vanity and suspicion made him wary, though he knew she was trying to win him back. He told himself that he had been made a fool of long enough.
"Yes, you do ... and it's all your fault." She broke down and turned half from him. Deep sobs began to rack her body.
"I'd like to know how it's my fault," he demanded resentfully. "Am I to blame because you broke your engagement to walk with me and went with that thief Kilmeny?"
"Yes." The word fell from her lips so low that he almost doubted his ears.
"What? By Jove, that's rich!"
Her luminous eyes fell full into his, then dropped. "If ... if you can't see——"
"See what? I see you threw me overboard for him. I see you've been flirting a mile a minute with the beggar and playing fast and loose with me. I'm hanged if I stand it."
"Oh, Dobyans! Don't you see? I ... I ... You made me."
"Made you?"
She was standing in profile toward him. He could see the quiver of her lip and the shadows beneath her eyes. Already he felt the lift of the big wave that was to float him to success.
"I ... have no mother."
"Don't take the point."
She spoke as a troubled child, as if to the breezes of the night. "I have to be careful. You know how people talk. Could I let them say that I ...ran after you?" The last words were almost in a whisper.
"Do you mean...?"
"Oh, couldn't you see? How blind men are!"
The little man, moved to his soul because this proud beauty was so deeply in love with him, took her in his arms and kissed her.
A little shudder went through her blood. It had not been two hours since Jack Kilmeny's kisses had sent a song electrically into her veins. But she trod down the momentary nausea with the resolute will that had always been hers. Verinder had paid for the right to caress her. He had offered his millions for the privilege. She too must pay the price for what she received.
"We must go in," she told him presently. "They will wonder."
"They won't wonder long, by Jove," he replied, a surge of triumph in his voice.
Joyce looked at him quickly. "You're not going to tell them to-night?"
He nodded. "To-night, my beauty."
"Oh, no. Please not to-night. Let's ... keep it to ourselves for a few days, dear." The last word was a trifle belated, but that might be because she was not used to it.
Verinder shot a look of quick suspicion at her. "I'm going to tell them to-night—as soon as we get back into the room."
"But ... surely it's for me to say that, Dobyans. I want to keep our little secret for awhile." She caught with her hands the lapels of his dinner jacket and looked pleadingly at him.
"No—to-night." He had a good deal of the obstinacy characteristic of many stupid men, but this decision was based on shrewd sense. He held the upper hand. So long as they were in the neighborhood of Jack Kilmeny he intended to keep it.
"Even though I want to wait?"
"Why do you want to wait?" he demanded sullenly. "Because of that fellow Kilmeny?"
She knew that she had gone as far as she dared. "How absurd. Of course not. Tell them if you like, but—it's the first favor I've asked of you since——"
Her voice faltered and broke. It held a note of exquisite pathos. Verinder felt like a brute, but he did not intend to give way.
"You haven't any real reason, Joyce."
"Isn't it a reason that ... I want to keep our engagement just to ourselves for a few days? It's our secret—yours and mine—and I don't want everybody staring at us just yet, Dobyans. Don't you understand?"
"Different here," he answered jauntily. "I want to shout it from the house-top." He interrupted himself to caress her again and to kiss the little pink ear that alone was within reach. "I'll make it upto you a hundred times, but I'm jolly well set on telling them to-night, dear."
She gave up with a shrug, not because she wanted to yield but because she must. Her face was turned away from him, so that he did not see the steely look in her eyes and the hard set of the mouth. She was thinking of Jack Kilmeny. What would he say or do when he was told? Surely he would protect her. He would not give her away. If he were a gentleman, he couldn't betray a woman. But how far would the code of her world govern him? He was primeval man. Would the savagery in him break bounds?
Within five minutes she found out. Jack Kilmeny, in evening dress, was jesting in animated talk with India when the engaged couple reëntered the room. He turned, the smile still on his face, to greet Joyce as she came forward beside Verinder. The little man was strutting pompously toward Lady Farquhar, the arm of the young woman tucked under his.
The eyes of Joyce went straight to Kilmeny in appeal for charity. In them he read both fear and shame, as well as a hint of defiant justification.
Even before the mine owner spoke everybody in the room knew what had happened on the veranda.
"Congratulate me, Lady Farquhar. Miss Seldon has promised to be my wife," Verinder sang out chirpily.
There was a chorus of ejaculations, of excited voices. Joyce disappeared into the arms of her friends, while Farquhar and Captain Kilmeny shook hands with the beaming millionaire and congratulated him. Jack's hands were filled with sheet music, but he nodded across to his successful rival.
"You're a lucky man to have won so true a heart, Mr. Verinder," he said composedly.
Joyce heard the words and caught the hidden irony. Her heart was in her throat. Did he mean to tell more?
Presently it came his turn to wish her joy. Jack looked straight at her. There was a hard smile on his sardonic face.
"I believe the right man has won you, Miss Seldon. All marriages aren't made in Heaven, but—— I've been hoping Mr. Verinder would lose out because he wasn't good enough for you. But I've changed my mind. He's just the man for you. Hope you'll always love him as much as you do now."
Joyce felt the color beat into her cheeks. She knew now that Kilmeny was not going to betray her, but she knew too that he understood and despised her.
CHAPTER XVIIA WARNING
Joyce, a lover of luxury, usually had a roll and coffee in bed as a substitute for breakfast. Sometimes she varied this by appearing late at the table and putting the attendants to unnecessary trouble. This she always paid for with murmurs of apology and sweet smiles of thanks.
On the second morning after the announcement of her engagement to Dobyans Verinder she came down to find the dining-room empty except for the omnibus.
She opened wide eyes of surprise. "Dear me! Am I late?"
"Yes'm."
She glanced at the watch on her wrist. "How inconsiderate of me! I didn't realize the time. Would you mind calling a waiter?"
Meanwhile Joyce began on her grape fruit. Almost simultaneously a sound of voices reached her. Men were coming into the parlor that adjoined the breakfast room.
The high-pitched voice of her affianced lover wasthe first she recognized. "——to-night! Sure he said to-night?"
Joyce judged that the rough tones of the answer came from a workingman. "That's right. To-night, Bell said. He was to bring his wagon round to Kilmeny's at eleven and they were going to haul the ore to Utah Junction."
A third speaker, evidently Bleyer, the superintendent, cut in quietly. "Bell said it was to be a big shipment, didn't he?"
"Yep. Worth sixty or seventy thousand, he figured."
"Was Bell drunk?"
"I wouldn't say drunk. He had been drinking a good deal. Talkative like. He let it out as a secret, y'understand."
"Anyone there beside you?"
"A miner by the name of Peale."
"Know the man?"
It was Verinder that asked the question and Bleyer that answered.
"Yes. A bad lot. One of those that insulted the young ladies."
"Anyhow, he won't warn Kilmeny."
"Not after the mauling that young man gave him. He's still carrying the scars," Bleyer replied with a low laugh. He added briskly, after a moment, "What do you expect to get out of this, Rollins?"
The workman seemed to answer with some embarrassment. "Thought you might give me that lease in the Mollie Gibson I spoke to you about, Mr. Bleyer."
"It's yours—if this comes out as you say, my man. I'd give more than that to call the turn on Mr. Highgrader Kilmeny," Verinder promised.
"And, o' course, you won't give it away that I told."
"Certainly not."
The arrival of a waiter eliminated Joyce as a listener, for the first thing the man did was to close the door between the parlor and the dining-room.
But she had heard enough to know that Jack Kilmeny was in danger of falling into a trap that was being set for him. Verinder had him at last, just as he had promised that he would get him. No doubt they would have witnesses and would send him to prison as they had threatened.
No more than forty-eight hours earlier Joyce would have been on Kilmeny's side instantly. Now her feelings were mixed. It was still impossible for her to think of him without a flare of passion. She was jealous and resentful because she had lost him, but deeper than these lay the anger born of his scornful surrender of her. It was as if his eyes for the first time had seen the real woman stripped of the glamour lent by her beauty. His contemptuous withdrawal from the field had cutlike a knife thrust. She wanted to pay him with usury for his cool, hard disdain. And she had the chance. All she had to do was to be silent and he would fall a victim to his own folly.
There was a hard glitter in the eyes of the young woman. Perhaps Mr. Highgrader Kilmeny, as Verinder had called him, would not be so prodigal of contempt for other people when he stood in the criminal dock. He had been brutally unkind to her. Was she to blame because he was too poor to support her properly? He ought to thank her for having the good sense not to tie herself like a millstone about his neck. They could not live on love just because for the moment passion had swept them from their feet. Instead of being angry at her, he should sympathize with her for being the victim of a pressure which had driven her to a disagreeable duty.
Her simmering anger received a fillip from an accidental meeting with Kilmeny, the first since the night of her engagement. Joyce and Moya were coming out of a stationer's when they came face to face with the miner.
The eyes of the young man visibly hardened. He shook hands with them both and exchanged the usual inane greetings as to the weather. It was just as they were parting that he sent his barbed shot into Joyce.
"I mustn't keep you longer, Miss Seldon. Onecan guess how keen you must be to get back to Verinder. Love's young dream, and that sort of thing, eh?"
The jeer that ran through his masked insolence brought the angry color to the cheeks of Joyce. She bit her lip to keep back tears of vexation, but it was not until she was in her room with Moya that the need for a confidant overflowed into speech.
"Did you ever hear anything so hateful? He made love to me on the hill.... I let him.... He knows I ... am fond of him. I told him that I loved him. And now...."
Moya stared at her in amaze. "Do you mean that you let Mr. Kilmeny make love to you an hour or two before you became engaged to Mr. Verinder?"
"For Heaven's sake, don't be a prude, Moya," Joyce snapped irritably. "I told you I was fond of him, didn't I? How could I help his kissing me ... or help liking to have him? He ought to be glad. Instead, he insults me." Miss Seldon's self-pity reached the acute stage of sobs. "I was in love with him. Why is he so hard?"
"Perhaps he thinks that since he is in love with you and you with him that gives him some claim," Moya suggested dryly.
"Of course that's what he thinks. But it's absurd. I'm not going to marry Dobyans Verinder because I want to. He knows that as well as youdo. Why does he blame me, then? Goodness knows, it's hard enough to marry the man without having my friends misunderstand."
Moya asked an unnecessary question. "Why do you marry him, then?"
"You know perfectly well," flashed Joyce petulantly. "I'm taking him because I must."
"Like a bad-tasting dose of medicine?"
Her friend nodded. "Ican'tlet him go. I justcan't. Jack Kilmeny ought to see that."
"Oh, he sees it, but you can't blame him for being bitter."
At the recollection of his impudence anger flared up in Joyce.
"Let him be as bitter as he pleases, then. I happen to know something he would give a good deal to learn. Mr. Jack Kilmeny is going to get into trouble this very night. They've laid a plot——"
She stopped, warned by the tense stillness of Moya.
"Yes?" asked the Irish girl.
"Oh, well! It doesn't matter."
"Who has laid a plot?"
"I've no business to tell. I just happened to overhear something."
"What did you overhear?"
"Nothing much."
"I want to know just what you heard."
Against the quiet steadfast determination of thisgirl Joyce had no chance. A spirit that did not know defeat inhabited the slender body.
Bit by bit Moya forced out of her the snatch of conversation she had overheard while at breakfast.
"It's a secret. You're not to tell anyone," Joyce protested.
Her friend drummed on the arm of the chair with the tips of her fingers. She was greatly troubled at what she had learned. She was a young woman, singularly stanch to her friends, and certainly she owed something to Verinder. The whole party were his guests at Goldbanks. He had brought them in a private car and taken care of them munificently. There were times when Moya disliked him a good deal, but that would not justify an act of treachery. If she warned Jack Kilmeny—and Moya did not pretend to herself for an instant that she was not going to do this—she would have to make confession to Verinder later. This would be humiliating, doubly so because she knew the man believed she was in love with the Goldbanks miner.
In her heart the Irish girl did not doubt that Jack was guilty, but this would not prevent her from saving him if she could. There came to her a swift vision of two helpless girls in a cabin with drinking ruffians, of the entry of a man into the picture, of his fight against odds to save her andJoyce from insult. Beside this abstract justice became a pale and misty virtue.
"Of course you'll not tell anyone," Joyce repeated.
Moya brought her gaze back from the window. "I shall tell Mr. Kilmeny."
"But it isn't your secret. You have no right to."
"Have you forgotten that night in the cabin?" asked Moya in a low, clear voice. "If you have, I haven't."
"I don't care," Joyce answered petulantly. "He's so hard. Why can't he be nice about this? Why can't he understand—instead of sneering at me? It's a good deal harder for me than for him. Think of fifty years of Dobyans Verinder."
"Would you care to write Mr. Kilmeny a note? I'll take it to him if you like," Moya suggested gently.
Joyce considered. "No, I couldn't put it on paper. But—you might tell him."
"I don't think I could quite do that."
"If it came up right; just show him how I'm placed."
"Perhaps. Shall I tell him that you asked me to warn him?"
Joyce nodded, eyes shining. She was a young woman capable of changing her mind in the snap of a finger. Dainty and exquisite as apple blossoms, she was like a young plant with delicate tendrilsforever reaching out. Love she must have and ever more of it. To admiration she was sensitive in every fiber. Whenever she thought of Jack Kilmeny's contempt tears scorched her eyes.
It was like Moya that she carried her warning immediately and directly. Kilmeny was not easy to find. He had been seen entering the office of a lawyer, but had left before she arrived. The attorney understood Jack to say that he was going to an assayer's office, and the young woman learned there that he had not been seen yet by the assayer. From here she walked toward his boarding house, thinking that she might catch him at lunch.
A quick step on the boardwalk behind her caught the girl's attention. Almost at the same moment a voice hailed her.
"Whither away, Miss Dwight?"
She turned, heart beating fast. "I was looking for you, Mr. Kilmeny."
"And you've found me. What luck—for Jack Kilmeny!" His friendly smile—the same one that had claimed comradeship on the Gunnison—beamed upon her with its hint of irony.
A miner with a dinner bucket was coming toward them. Moya spoke quickly.
"I want to see you ... alone. I've something important to tell you."
His cool eyes searched her face alertly. "Come up with me to the old Pandora dump."
They took a side street that ran up the hill, presently came to the end of it, and stopped at the foot of a trail leading to the abandoned shaft-house.
The girl fired her news at him point blank. "Mr. Verinder has found out what you mean to do to-night and you are to be trapped."
"What I mean to do?" he repeated.
"About the ore—shipping it or something. I don't know exactly—somebody was drinking and talked, I think."
Moya, watching Kilmeny's face, saw only the slightest change. The eyes seemed to harden and narrow the least in the world.
"Tell me all you know about it."
She repeated what Joyce had overheard, adding that her friend had asked her to tell him.
The faintest ironic smile touched his face. "Will you thank Miss Seldon for me, both for this and many other favors?"
"You don't understand Joyce. You're not fair to her," Moya said impulsively.
"Perhaps not." A sudden warmth kindled in his eyes. "But I know who my real friends are. I'm fair to them, neighbor."
The color beat into her face, but she continued loyally. "May I ... assume you have a kindly interest in Joyce?"
"I'll listen to anything you care to tell me. I owe my friend, Miss Dwight, that much."
"She told me ... a little about you and her. Be fair to her. Remember how she has been brought up. All her life it has been drilled into her that she must make a good match. It's a shameful thing. I hate it. But ... what can a girl like Joyce do?"
"You justify her?"
"I understand her. A decision was forced on her. She had no time to choose. And—if you'll forgive my saying so—I think Joyce did wisely, since she is what she is."
"Of course she did," he answered bitterly.
"Think of her. She doesn't love him, but she sacrifices her feeling to what she considers her duty."
"Shall we substitute ambition for duty?"
"If you like. Her position is not a happy one, but she must smile and be gay and hide her heartache. You can afford to be generous, Mr. Kilmeny."
"I've been a fool," he admitted dryly. "The turn that things have taken is the best possible one for me. But I'm not quite prepared to thank Miss Seldon yet for having awakened me."
She saw that his vanity was stung more than his heart. His infatuation for her had been of the senses. The young woman shifted to another issue.
"You'll be careful to-night, won't you?"
"Very. Mr. Verinder will have to wait for his coup, thanks to you."
"You mean...?" The question hung fire on her lips.
"Go on, neighbor."
"No. It was something I had no business to ask." The cheeks beneath the dusky eyes held each a patch of color burning through the tan.
"Then I'll say it for you. You were going to ask if they would really have caught me with the goods. Wasn't that it?"
She nodded, looking straight at him with the poise of lithe, slim youth he knew so well. Her very breathing seemed for the moment suspended while she waited, tremulous lips apart, for his answer.
"Yes."
"You mean that ... you are a highgrader?"
"Yes."
"I ... was afraid so."
His eyes would not release her. "You made excuses for Miss Seldon. Can you find any for me?"
"You are a man. You are strong. It is different with you."
"My sin is beyond the pale, I suppose?"
"How do I know? I'm only a girl. I've never seen anything of real life. Can I judge you?"
"But you do."
The troubled virginal sweetness of the girl wentto his soul. She was his friend, and her heart ached because of his wrongdoing.
"I can't make myself think wrong is right."
"You think the profits from these mines should all go to Verinder and his friends, that none should belong to the men who do the work?"
"I don't know.... That doesn't seem fair.... But I'm not wise enough to know how to make that right. The law is the law. I can't go back of that."
"Can't you? I can. Who makes the laws?" He asked it almost harshly.
"The people, I suppose."
"Nothing of the kind. The operators control the legislatures and put through whatever bills they please. I went to the legislative assembly once and we forced through an eight hour law for underground workers. The state Supreme Court, puppets of capital, declared the statute unconstitutional. The whole machinery of government is owned by our masters. What can we do?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I—except what I am doing. It is against the law, all right, but I try to see that the workmen get some of the profits they earn."
"Would the operators—what would they do if they proved you guilty of highgrading?"
"It is hard to prove. Ore can't easily be identified."
"But if they did?" she persisted.
"I'd go over the road quick as their courts could send me." A sardonic flicker of amusement moved him to add: "Would you obey the Scriptural injunction and visit me in prison, Miss Dwight?"
"I wouldn't be here. We're going back to England next week."
"But if you were. Would your friendship stand the test?"
Once again she answered, "I don't know," her heart beating wildly as her glance fell away from his.
"I shan't have to try you out this time, neighbor. I'm not going to the pen if I can help it."
"Are you sure of that? The mine owners are quite determined to punish some of the highgraders. Suppose I hadn't come to you to-day. What then?"
He smiled down upon her with the easy recklessness that distinguished him. "I don't think it would have run quite to a prison sentence. The burden of proof lies on the accuser. Because I am in possession of rich ore, it does not follow that I did not come by it legitimately. Ore can't be sworn to like bric-a-brac. I may have shipped this in from South Africa, so far as the law knows. Bleyer knows that. I figure he would have played his hand in the Goldbanks way."
"And how would that be?"
"He would forget the law too, just as we've doneon our side. A posse of men would have fallen on me maybe after I had got out of town, and they would have taken that ore from me. They would have been masked so that I could not swear to them."
"Why, that is highway robbery."
He laughed. "We don't use such big words out here, ma'am. Just a hold-up—a perfectly legitimate one, from Bleyer's viewpoint—and it would have left me broke."
"Broke!"
He nodded. "Dead broke. I've got twenty thousand dollars invested in that ore—every cent I've got in the world."
"You paid that to the miners for it?"
"We pay fifty per cent. of what is coming to the men as soon as a rough assay is made, the other fifty after we get the smelter returns. That wagon load of ore is worth—unless I miss my guess badly—about sixty thousand dollars."
"Dear me. So much as that?" She could not quite keep a note of sarcasm out of her voice. "And have you it in a safety deposit vault?"
His cool gaze took her in quietly. He was willing to bet his last dollar on her loyalty, and it was like him to back his judgment in one wild throw. "Not exactly. It is lying in a pile of hay in my barn, all sacked up ready for shipment."
"Waiting there for anybody that wants it," she suggested.
"For anybody that wants it worse than I do," he corrected, the fighting gleam in his eyes.
"I've a right to ask one thing of you—that there will be no bloodshed to-night because of what I have told you."
"There will be none of my seeking," he replied grimly.
"No. That's not enough. You must find a way to avoid it."
"By handing over my hard-earned dishonest profits to the virtuous Verinder?" he asked dryly.
"I don't care how. But I won't have on my shoulders ... murder."
"That's a right hard word, neighbor," he said, falling again into the Western drawl he sometimes used as a mark of his friendship for her. "But have it your own way. I'll not even tote a gat."
"Thank you." She gave him a brisk little nod, suddenly choked up in her throat, and turned to go.
Jack fell into step beside her. "Have I lost my little friend—the one who used to come to me in my dreams and whisper with a lisp that I wasn't a 'stwanger'?" he asked, very gently.
She swallowed twice and walked on without looking at him. But every nerve of her was conscious of his stimulating presence. Since the inner man found expression in that lithe body with the undulatingflow of well-packed muscles, in the spare head set so finely on the perfect shoulders, in the steady eyes so frank and self-reliant, surely he was not unworthy the friendship of any woman. But he had just confessed himself a thief. What right had he to ask or she to give so much?
Her hand went out in an impetuous little gesture of despair. "How do I know? You are doing wrong, but ... Oh, why do you do such things?"
"It's in my blood not to let prudence stop me when I've made up my mind to a thing. My father was that way. I'm trying in a rough way to right an injustice—and I like the excitement—and I daresay I like the loot too," he finished with a reckless laugh.
"I wish I could show you how wrong you are," she cried in a low voice.
"You can't. I'll go my own way. But you are still going to let me come and visit you in your dreams, aren't you?"
The glow in her quick live eyes was not a reflection of the sun. She felt the color flood her cheeks in waves. She dared not look at him, but she was poignantly aware that his gaze was fixed on her, that it seemed to bore to the soul and read the hidden secret there. A queer lightheadedness affected her. It was as if her body might float away into space. She loved him. Whatever he was, the man held her heart in the hollow of his careless,reckless hand. To him she would always deny it—or would have if he had thought enough of her to ask—but she knew the truth about herself from many a passionate hour of despair.
Dry as a whisper came her answer, in a voice which lacked the nonchalance she tried to give it. "I daresay I'll be as friendly ... as you deserve."
"You've got to be a heap more friendly than that, partner."
They had come back to the boardwalk which marked the parting of the ways for them. She had won control of herself again and offered him a steady hand.
"I suppose we'll not see each other again.... Good-by."
He was suddenly conscious that he desired very greatly her regard and her approval.
"Is that all you have to say? Are you going to leave me like this?"
"What more is there to be said?" She asked it quietly, with the calm courage that had its birth in hopelessness.
"This much, at least. I don't release you from ... the old tie that used to bind us. We're still going to be dream friends. I haven't forgotten little Moya, who kissed me one night on the deck of theVictorian."
"She was a baby at the time," answered the girl.
He had not released her hand. Now, as he lookedstraight into the sweet face with eyes like troubled stars, it came to him on a flood of light that he had made a fatal mistake.
He dropped her fingers abruptly. "Good-by."
His crisp footfalls seemed to print themselves on a heart of lead. How could she know that he carried away with him a vision of sweet youth that was to endure!