The next morning, yielding to McVey's urgencies, he consented to take part in the fall round-up just at hand, working in the interests of the C Bar outfit.
In the ensuing days of strenuous toil he worked harder than he had ever done before in all his range experience, spurred with the idea that he owed Carter some reparation for leaving his service so unceremoniously, and his staunch yeomanry appealed particularly to Anselm Brevoort, who had run out to see a rodeo and have a month's hunt with Carter. As the best hunter among the C Bar men it naturally devolved upon Douglass, after the range work was done, to act as guide to Brevoort and the ladies, who developed a great interest in the sport.
It was upon one of these trips that Brevoort casually mentioned his temptation to buy a ranch as an investment, asking Douglass's advice in the matter. The latter expressing some diffidence in the premises, Brevoort brought the point in issue to a definite focus by asking him if he thought the price asked for the Vaughan holdings, twenty thousand dollars, was excessive. Douglass thought it was excessively cheap, to the contrary, and said so emphatically.
"I would gladly give thirty for it if I had the money. There are more than twenty thousand dollars' worth of cattle in the VN brand without counting the ranch lands, which are worth nearly as much more. I think the Vaughans are loco to sell at the price!"
They had just finished luncheon and were lounging about a little spring enjoying their post-prandial pipes. Mrs. Brevoort was dallying with a dainty papelito and Grace was fussing with her pocket camera. Constance, gracefully exhaling a perfumed wraith, looked significantly to her husband, who gave an imperceptible nod and after a few thoughtful puffs came to the marrow of his subject.
"That's Carter's opinion, too, and McVey thinks it a great bargain, also. And as Mrs. Brevoort has taken a great fancy to the place for some reason, I think I will take it; that is, if I can secure some competent man to manage it for me. It would be a position of entire trust as I know nothing of the business and would necessarily be unable to give it scarcely any attention, my time being fully occupied otherwise. Are you open to such an engagement, Mr. Douglass?"
Grace Carter, her attention apparently riveted upon some intricate adjustment of her camera, scarcely breathed; Constance Brevoort, flicking the ash from her cigarette, never moved an eyelash. In the silence which followed the question, the champing of the horses on the grain in their nose-bags sounded to the women like a threshing machine.
"I am much flattered!" said Douglass, slowly. "But I am afraid that I will not be able to accept your offer. I have some mining interests to look after and—"
"But I understood you to say that you would gladly give thirty thousand dollars for it if you were in funds. That presupposes that you could find the time if necessary," said Breevort, with humorous insistence. "Look here, Douglass, I am not in the habit of loading myself up with dubious investments, and I wouldn't give ten dollars for the whole layout unless I can secure you as manager. In your hands I feel as though I would get fair returns on my outlay. I am frank to say I have 'looked you up' as we say in town, and I want you to give it further consideration before turning my offer down. As to your mining interests, perhaps I could be of some assistance to you in that direction. Think it over; I won't take no for an answer right off the reel."
As he was unsaddling the horses on their return that night, Miss Carter, coming with some sugar lumps for her pet roan, stopped long enough to shyly venture the hope that he would be able to become one of the neighbors.
"The sale of their ranch will allow Nellie Vaughan to achieve the dream of her life, an extended trip abroad, and one realizes so few of one s dreams in this life, you know! Besides, you are part of the environment to me. You really 'belong'! I do hope you will accept Mr. Brevoort's proposal—for Nellie's sake!"
Very deliberately he hung the saddle on the rack. Then he came close to her, looking very masterful and Strong in the white moonlight.
"Nellie is to be congratulated on the thoughtfulness of her loving friends! But why should I, who am not one of them, take her into consideration at all? Promiscuous philanthropy is not my forte. The inducement is small. Have you nothing better to offer?"
"For our sakes, then;" she said ambiguously. "We will feel easier if you remain on this range, feel more secure in our lives and property." He flushed at the immensity of the compliment but ruthlessly forced her hand.
"That's rather high, but still not enough. Bid again!"
"Formysake!" It was nearly a whisper, but he heard. His eyes were triumphantly bright as, deftly eluding his curving arm, she sped swiftly away in the benign darkness. But it was a different glow from any which had ever irradiated them before: This was that of a soft, sweet tenderness that vaguely soothed even while strongly disconcerting him. He was very quiet under the spell of it as he went into supper, and noticeably distrait during the game of chess which he subsequently played with Mrs. Brevoort in the big living room later on.
Beating him with ridiculous ease she declined another game, saying, laughingly: "You are not in form to-night, Mr. Douglass, and I like victories more difficult of achievement. Time was when I was content with mere winning, no matter how easy the attainment of that end. But this life out here has spoiled me for inanities forever. I have still the insatiable desire for conquest, but now I want to go up against odds and win, to bring into camp only opponents worthy of my steel."
"But that," he said, with conventional politeness, "is unthinkable. There can be none entirely worthy of you!" She made a littlemouéat the wearisome compliment.
"Why do all men say the same things! I'm quite sure I've heard something like that a hundred times before. In fact, I've come three thousand miles to get away from it. Say something original, please, even if it be something wicked!"
He looked at her queerly but she met his gaze with eyes as audacious as her words. Over at the piano Grace was playing with much tender feeling one of Chopin's delicious nocturnes; before the open fireplace, Carter, Brevoort and McVey were discussing the possibilities of a well-managed ranch. The big room with its happy combination of modern and primitive amenities was the epitome of cheerfulness and comfort.
"Original? No man can say anything that is that. The possibilities were exhausted centuries ago. Even. Sin is stereotyped. There have always been women like you and men like me! What on earth could a man in my position say to a woman in yours that would be acceptably wicked?"
She smiled inscrutably; there was no abstraction in his manner now. "And yet you are so bold in other things!" she said, tauntingly. "To the brave all things are possible."
From far out in the darkness came the weird, long-drawn, mournful howl of some gaunt timber wolf foraging with his mate. It was very faint and the others, deeply engrossed in music and money matters, were unconscious of it. At its eerie repetition she laid her hand lightly on his arm.
"Listen! That is something new to me at all events. What can it be?"
"Only 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness,'" he whimsically quoted. "A gray wolf calling to his mate." He laid his hand restrainingly on hers and leaned so close that his hot breath swept her cheek.
"I wonder how brave, or wicked, you could really be, you wonderful creature!" he murmured, insidiously. Her color heightened but she made no reply. The pulse was very distinct in the veins of the soft little warm hand lying tremulously beneath his. "Listen! There it is again, the call of the Wild, the voice out of the Primitive inviting strong souls back into the boundless realm of the great First Cause. Are you brave enough to accept it, to go out and be the most gloriously fierce wolf of them all?"
"Why," she exclaimed, with a labored vivacity that deceived neither of them, "that is certainly original!"
"With—say with me for a running mate!" His voice was scarcely audible.
"And that is decidedly wicked!" She gently withdrew her hand. But there was small reproof in the seductive smile playing about her red lips. With the arrogance of the youthfully virile and strong he glanced contemptuously at the slight figure before the fireplace, old and worn and gray, debilitated with the fierce excesses of the chase after money; then he looked at the radiant beauty of the voluptuous young woman beside him and laughed grimly at the painful disparity between man and wife.
"And they say marriages are made in heaven!" To his credit be it said that he had intended the sneer to be mental only, but somehow or other, perhaps telepathically, the woman bent her head and a wave of crimson suffused her face.
"Wolves know no conventions," he went on with tense vehemence. "Out there in the wild soul calls to soul, body leaps to body in the fitness of true affinity. It is all Life, and therefore all Love; for Life is Love incarnated. The senile moralists of Humanity, that least fit race of all earthly animals, preach the equality of the sexes. As applied to human beings that is a lie. It is only out there among the wolves that She is the equal of He in all things, his mental, physical, psychical and sexual peer. That is why the type is kept pure and eternal. The wolf of twenty centuries hence will be fully the equal of the wolf of to-day. And why? Because of the virtue of perfect natural selection—the fittest to the fittest, without the let and hindrance of sickly sentimentality, the unnatural joining by Man-god made crimes of the unfit to the fit. Wolves breed wolves, with full powers of the highest enjoyment of Life and Love. Humanity begets weaklings, cowards, driveling idiots whose highest evolution is that shapeless thing called Hope, whose greatest virtue is submission to the anomalies of civilization. Even you, who could be the peer of any wolf that ever ran untrammeled—"
He stopped abruptly, ashamed of his vehemence, and somewhat abashed by the indulgent if slightly satirical smile of his amused listener.
"Even if I could run, and howl, and go hungry; every man's hand, and what is infinitely worse, every woman's tongue against me! And what could the Wolf give me in exchange for this?" waving her hand around the room comprehensively and incidentally fondling her jewels.
"He could give you something in exchange forthat," he said, with a sinister glance towards the fireplace and again she dropped her eyes.
He drew the chess board towards him and began mechanically arranging the pieces. Then he swept them impatiently into a heap and made as if to arise. She leaned forward suddenly and again laid her hand on his arm.
"The wolf subject is an interesting one to me. It is really a pity that I will not be accorded an opportunity of studying them in their native haunts. If it were not for your, to us, unfortunate obligations elsewhere, I should devote quite a portion of my time to the pursuit of more definite information about them."
His hot hand almost burned hers. "Why shouldn't you investigate the matter if you want to? Your husband is going to buy the VN ranch!" In silence more eloquent than words she gave him her hand.
After a few desultory minutes with the group about the fireplace, he strolled over to the piano. Grace welcomed him shyly, her touch on the keys a little uncertain as in compliance with her request he sang to her accompaniment the Toreador song from Carmen. The request was an inspiration on her part, she never having heard him sing before, and she had preferred it only to cover her soft confusion as she suddenly felt rather than saw his presence behind her. If his instant compliance had surprised her, his execution of it was a revelation to everyone in the room. He sang it easily and freely, a little raucously from lack of practice, it is true, but with the power and richness of voice that made even Constance Brevoort, hypercritical as she was in things musical, sit breathless to its conclusion.
The silence which followed was first broken by Red. "Gee, Ken," he said quaintly, "who'd ever thought yuh could beller so melojious as that! Why, yuh're a reg'lah preemoh-johnny!" In the hilarity which this evoked Grace said, reproachfully:
"And to think I never knew!"
He was almost boyishly elated at the implied compliment, and, at the insistence of his audience sang several other operatic selections very creditably. Then he turned in modest explanation to Carter's demand.
"We all sang a little at college, you know, and my mother was an accomplished musician. It is four years since I last sang. You are overkind to me."
"Do you not play as well?" impulsively asked Mrs. Brevoort. He shook his head negatively.
"Only a few accompaniment chords that I smash out indifferently! and I am dubious of my ability to do that after all these years of roping and ditch digging."
Anselm Brevoort, watching him speculatively through a fragrant cloud of cigar smoke, suddenly sprang a bomb. "Have you ever composed, Mr. Douglass, written any songs, for instance? I have heard that you range men have an aptitude in that direction."
Douglass surveyed him levelly for a moment, his face hardening with quick suspicion. "I have done most things foolish, after the manner of my kind, Mr. Brevoort," he said, curtly; "but I hardly think you would find even a passing interest in anything I have accomplished in that direction." Whereupon that astute financier subsided promptly, evincing no further curiosity as to the poetic attainments of this uncomfortably straight-speaking young personage. He was a very shrewd man and had long since learned to respect the moods and idiosyncrasies of others.
But Constance, his wife, detecting the sharp irritation in Douglass's voice, was seized with a malicious desire to know its cause; like her husband she was thinking: "That caught him on the raw, somehow. I wonder why?"
"You should allow your friends to be the judge of that, Mr. Douglass," she said, pleasantly. "I am quite certain myself that we should find much more than a passing interest if we could induce you to favor us. The songs inspired by this environment must naturally be full of color and strength. I should very much enjoy hearing one."
"Upon your heads be it, then!" He seated himself at the piano. "This," he said, turning to Mrs. Brevoort, meaningly, "I call 'The Song of the Wolf.'"
Through the silence of the room crept a queer, faint murmur like the breath of an æolian harp or the sighing of the wind through far-off pines. There was no attempt at harmonious arrangement and concordance; it was rather a vague, erratic and intangible dissonance, a weird jumble of soft discords that alternately pleased and pained. Gradually it increased in volume, as the wind rises to the approach of a storm, culminating finally in a thunderous crash of double bass. Then out of the contrastive silence of the succeeding lull came unmistakably the mournful howl of a wolf, wonderfully rendered by a few soft tremulous touches of those strong yet sensitive fingers.
Another rolling crash, a diminishing rumble, and then the rich, deep voice of the singer:
"Child of the Wind and Sun, I glideLike a tongue of flame o'er the mountain's side.Wherever falleth my blighting treadLie the whitening bones of the silent Dead.For trail of wrathIs my red-wet pathFrom the Sea's low rim to the glaciers high,Ai y-u-u—yu—yu-u-u-u!I live the better that others die.Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!"Oh! sweet is the scent in the evening gale,Of the dun deer wending adown the trailWhere I lie, grim ambushed, with bated breath,A gray lance couched in the hand of Death!At that maddening tangWhite-bared each fang,Dripping anon with ambrosia red;Ai y-u-u—yu—yu-u-u-u!Haste, sweetheart, to the feast outspread!Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!"But sweeter even than Life's rich wine,As, hot from the kill—ah-h! draught divine!—It trickles adown my ravished throat,Is my gaunt mate's deep-toned, chesty note.As o'er hill and plainShe calls amainTill the welkin quivers with ecstasy:Ai y-u-u—yu—yu-u-u-u!'Oh come, Beloved, to Love and me!'Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!"Manlings spawned in the cities' slime.Weaklings, withered before your prime.What ken ye of the joys there beOf Life and of Love and of Liberty!Better hill and dellAs free IshmaelThan the shackles of pomp and pageantry:Ai yu-u-u—yu—yu-u-u-u!Come out, oh! faint hearts, and howl with me!Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!"
"Child of the Wind and Sun, I glideLike a tongue of flame o'er the mountain's side.Wherever falleth my blighting treadLie the whitening bones of the silent Dead.For trail of wrathIs my red-wet pathFrom the Sea's low rim to the glaciers high,Ai y-u-u—yu—yu-u-u-u!I live the better that others die.Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!
"Oh! sweet is the scent in the evening gale,Of the dun deer wending adown the trailWhere I lie, grim ambushed, with bated breath,A gray lance couched in the hand of Death!At that maddening tangWhite-bared each fang,Dripping anon with ambrosia red;Ai y-u-u—yu—yu-u-u-u!Haste, sweetheart, to the feast outspread!Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!
"But sweeter even than Life's rich wine,As, hot from the kill—ah-h! draught divine!—It trickles adown my ravished throat,Is my gaunt mate's deep-toned, chesty note.As o'er hill and plainShe calls amainTill the welkin quivers with ecstasy:Ai y-u-u—yu—yu-u-u-u!'Oh come, Beloved, to Love and me!'Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!
"Manlings spawned in the cities' slime.Weaklings, withered before your prime.What ken ye of the joys there beOf Life and of Love and of Liberty!Better hill and dellAs free IshmaelThan the shackles of pomp and pageantry:Ai yu-u-u—yu—yu-u-u-u!Come out, oh! faint hearts, and howl with me!Ai yu-u-u-u-u-u!"
In the storm of applause that rewarded his unique performance he rose and went over to the fireplace.
"If you are still disposed to the purchase of the Vaughan holdings I will accept your offer," he said to Brevoort. "But I must be free to come and go at will. I am one of the wolves, you know!"
Brevoort nodded a brisk acquiescence. "That is perfectly satisfactory to me. We will arrange the details."
McVey was genuinely pleased and said so; Carter rather grudgingly extended his congratulations; he would rather Douglass were the manager of his own estate. His grievance was still fresh and rankling.
Constance Brevoort, toying with the ivory chessmen, smiled commiseratingly at the soft irradiation of Grace's face.
It was arranged that the transfer of the VN interests should be made at the last day of the year. The weather was still open and the days very delightful, and Brevoort evincing a lively interest in Douglass's mining venture, his wife proposed a junket over to the claims on the head of the Roaring Fork, something less than forty miles away as the crow flies. As the trip would have to be made over rather difficult trails it was decided to go on horseback, the camp paraphernalia being loaded on pack animals in charge of McVey, who somewhat eagerly volunteered his services.
The trail led through a very rugged country alive with big game and Brevoort was in the seventh heaven of a hunter's delight. For three days the cavalcade slowly wended its way through scenery unequaled anywhere on earth, and every minute was fraught with enjoyment. On the afternoon of the third day, when they finally reached the rough claim-cabin nestling in the giant spruces on the edge of a little sun-kissed park, their delight was unbounded.
Artistic in nature, Douglass had selected a most charming spot for his habitation. The little park, sloping to the westward, was knee-deep with grass, studded with the belated blooms of the high altitudes. Down one side purled a little brook, fed from a beautiful waterfall in easy view from the cabin door. To the south lay the snow-capped purple reaches of the Taylor Range over which they had just come, and to the east, behind the cabin, towered the majestic grandeur of the continent-dividing Rockies, the "Backbone of the World" in the poetical phraseology of the Ute Indians. From the cabin door one looked over an immense vista of mountain, plain, valley and river too exquisite for description by words.
Having come leisurely and comfortably, all were in the proper frame of mind and body for its enjoyment, and the scrupulously clean cabin came in for its share of deserved encomiums. It was immediately given over for the personal use of the ladies, who were delighted with the cozy bunks and foot-deep mattresses of aromatic spruce needles. The men, as much from preference as from necessity, spread their blankets under the open sky.
The sportsman's instinct was strong in Brevoort, so he and Douglass went out with their rifles, returning in less than an hour with a splendid buck deer and a dozen grouse. The little stream had also yielded up to Carter, who was an expert fly-fisherman, some two-score delicious trout, and the resulting meal was one fit for the gods. All cowboys are from necessity good cooks, and the fluffy, golden brown biscuits and fragrant coffee of Red's making were unexceptionable.
Despite the chill of the evening they sat around a roaring camp-fire until long after the moon rose, regaled by the quaint narratives of McVey, who was a born raconteur. What added to their subtle humor immensely was the fact that the embodied jokes were almost always turned at his own expense. But the last of his relations brought tears into the eyes of one woman at least, and made Douglass kick embarrassedly at the glowing log heap until the sparks arose in an inverted cascade of fire.
"Theah is some people in thu wohld that seem just bawn foh trubble! They are built a-puppos, like a woodpecker, an' mizzery nacherally poahs upon 'em when everybody else is so allfired happy that it hurts.
"I mind a fambly o' that kind which come oveh yeah from thu Picketwire (Purgatoire River) three yeah ago. They was foah on 'em, two ole ones an' a couple o' kids, boy 'n gyurl, 'bout sixteen yeahs ole, each."
"How old, each?" asked Douglass, artlessly.
"'Bout sixteen yeah ole, each, I said, an' I didn't stuttah, neither! They was twinneds. Thu boy was tow-haided an' ornary; thu gyurl were a roan, even redder'n me! I think she were thu freckledst critter I eveh see, an' ugly! Say, honest, she was afeared to look inter a lookin' glass an' every time she see her face axcidental she hollered!
"Thet outfit were shore onlucky! Fust theah hosses got into a loco patch, an' one dawk night walked oveh a clift thinkin' it were thu aidge o' a sun crack. Then theah cow gits lumpy jaw an' haster be shot. Thu hekid tried to hold out kyards one night when Lem Bowers was feelin' mean, an' it took thu waggin an' hawness to pay fer sawin off hes laig. An' when he got so's he could mosey about agin, hes krutch got stuck in thu frawg o' the railroad crossin' in Gunnison an' a freight train mussed him up redic'lous!
"Naow yuh'd think thet thu two thousand plunks thu Company paid hes paw fer dammitches was a purty faih standoff fer past hawdships, but thet fambly's luck was suthin' scandalous! It were all in hunner dollah bills, an' thu ole woman cached 'em in thu mattrass of her baid. Thu mattrass were stuffed with wild hay, an' one day when thu ole woman were out pickin' Oregan grape an' osho-root fer thu ole man's rheumatiz, a burro loafered into camp an' et up thu hull shootin' match!
"The she-kid rustles a jawb as biscuit-shooter in a Swede beanery oveh to Crested Butte, but she was so plum ugly thet she scahed away all thu feeders an' thu boss sues her foh his come-back. Then she hikes out with a tinhawn Greaser an' ketches thu small-pawx down to Taos, an' passes out accordin'!
"One day thu ole man goes shy on meat and goes out huntin'. He don't see no deer but he finds a mine—just hes dum luck, ye see; he were lookin' fer chuck an' thu best he got was a stone! Well, he gits so axcited thet he tries to break a chunk offen thu laidge with his gun butt, an' thu blame ole shootin' iron jars loose an' blows hes fool wing off. Fawtuhn were a leetle severe on thu ole fellah, don't yuh think? But he manages ter git home with hes leetle ole hunk o' quawtz, tells thu ole woman wheah he found it, an' petehs out, hisself. They's so pooh thet she had ter go an' git hes gun so's ter be able ter sell it an' git enough mazuma ter plant him with thu 'propriate trimmin's. Them kind is allus great on perprieties!
"Well, she finds thu gun wheah he had drapped it on thu croppin's an' brings it an' a hull apern full o' thu rock home with her. Then she bawls it all out, foolish like, to ther neighbors; she hocks her weddin' dress fer enough ter pay a rock-sharp fer a assay on thu truck—an' o' cose thu durn skunk sneaks out an' jumps thu claim!"
He rolled a fresh cigarette and lit it with a red-hot coal juggled deftly between his palms. Douglass kicked the fire impatiently and yawned.
"Cut it short, Red! It's getting late. Of course she got so much gold out of her mine that she took the yellow fever and swallowed her false teeth, or was guilty of some other fantastic foolishness. You incorrigible old faker, you are making that up as you go!"
Red looked undecidedly after him as he strode away in the moonlight in the direction of the picketed horses. For a moment he hesitated, then he flung a fresh log on the fire and began to untie his blanket roll.
"It is gettin' along about beddin' down time, fer a fac'." But there was much of disconsolation in his voice. Red hated to spoil a good story.
"But the woman, the mine, finish your story!" came in rapid fire from his audience. He fumbled with his "soogans" a moment, then came over and looked thoughtfully into the fire.
"Thu fellah who jumped thu Las' Chance lode was a kind o' mine brokeh, one o' thu damn sharks as is allus raidy to take a low down advantage of thu mis-fort-unit an' helpless." Brevoort winced slightly and his wife smiled behind her hand. "He had anotheh felleh workin' fer him, a real white man! When this yeah las' felleh I'm tellin' yuh about finds out what the brokeh cuss's game is, he done raises—well, he nacherally buhns th' air! He acts real foolish about what he calls justice to the ignerent an' weak, an' when hes bawss perposes to let him shaih in thu profits an' holp do thu ole woman outen her rights, he jes' up an' bends hes gun oveh thu dawg's haid—he's been on thu puny list eveh since! Then he, thu white felleh, goes out, pulls up thu jumpah's stakes an' re-locates thu mine in thu ole woman's name."
"That's a man after my own heart!" said Grace, enthusiastically. Red seemed a little put out over her assertion but he bravely swallowed his dose and continued.
"He's got a few hunnerd saved up and he makes it go far enough in development work to git her a patent on it. Bein' a United States Deputy he surveys thu claim hisself an' saves thet much. In sho't he makes her claim good so's no one kin steal it from her, an' thet ole woman owns a hat store, a ho-tel, a bank, an' foweh saloons in Gunnison now. She jes' wallers in wealth!"
Again he turned to his blankets. Out in the white moonlight Douglass stood looking over the silvered landscape, a retrospective bitterness curling his lip.
"And the surveyor, the man who saved her mine and in reality gave her this great wealth?" asked Grace, with a fierce wild pride burning in her heart.
"Well," said Red, gravely, "I told yuh she was a critter bawn to misfohtuhn. She went loco oveh thu thing, got in too much of a hurry, an' sold out the claim, unbeknownst ter him who were managin' it fer her, fer a measly hunnerd thousand, jes' two hours befoh he closed a deal with a big Denveh outfit foh a quateh million. An' she got so het up oveh her hawd luck thet she lost her memory an' couldn't remember thet she was owin' him anything when they come ter settle up. Thet were shore thu mos' unfawchinit thing 'at eveh happened to her. I reckon thet she'll go to hell on account of it!"
"But why did he not bring suit for a just and proper accounting?" asked Brevoort, impatiently. "He had a good case. The man must be a rank fool! What has become of him?"
Red spat speculatively into the fire. "I reckon he kinda hated ter fuss with a woman. He is a cow-punchaw now, an' all cowpunchaws is loco! Thu las' time I see him he were glommerin' all by hes lonesome in a moonlight jes' like this'n, an' I have an' ijea thet he were wishtful o' kickin' somebody's pants."
The moon was high in the heavens when Douglass came back to the fire. It had burned down to a heap of ruby coals and the others had long since entered the land of Nod. He lighted a last cigarette, crouching over the scant warmth as he smoked it.
Brevoort, not yet fully inured to the chill of these great heights, shivered in his sleep despite his generous covering. Douglass took a well-furred bearskin from his own bed and laid it gently over the thin-blooded sleeper. Then he pulled off his high-heeled boots and joined the silent majority. The gray mare was flicking her tail in the east when he opened his eyes again.
For five blissful days there was much of hunting, fishing and exploring of the charming neighborhood by the Carters and Brevoorts. Douglass and McVey expended their time and energies mostly on the development of the claims. But the covering of slide-rock was very thick and the vein persistently eluded them. Probe and strip where they would nothing but country-rock rewarded their efforts. Carter and Brevoort were inclined to a kindly expressed skepticism as to the existence of the lode, and even Red's optimistic faith in Douglass's good judgment was waning. The women alone, for some occult reason, gave him cheering encouragement, Grace in particular expressing her conviction of his ultimate success.
But up to the day preceding their intended departure nothing had materialized to vindicate his expenditure of time and money. On the morning of that day he had gone up alone to the shallow tunnel which he was driving into the hillside near the top of the ridge, intending to blast down a wide shelf of rock in the face of the adit in order to "square up" his work and leave everything in ship-shape for the next season's new operations.
He was using dynamite, the rock being very hard; and as this explosive exerts its force most powerfully against the object of most resistance, with an especial tendency to blow downward, he had merely placed a couple of the cartridge sticks with detonaters and fuses attached on the top of the shelf, covering them slightly with loose sand, depending on the well-defined cleavage of the rock to accomplish his purpose. As it happened to be the last of both powder and fuse supply on the claim, he did not trim off the fuse as short as usual; it was about four times the ordinary length, but as fuse is the least expensive item in such work he was unusually extravagant in this single instance.
It is singular upon what strange things the pivot of fate and fortune turns. Had he been ordinarily economical of that fuse these annals would end grewsomely with this chapter. For, as he lighted the fuse and walked leisurely out of the short tunnel, directing his steps toward a sheltering abutment of the ledge which assured protection from the flying fragments loosened by the explosion of the heavy charge, Grace Carter slowly sauntered into view on the other side of the tunnel mouth, her hands full of some mountain blooms which she had gathered on the opposite slope of the ridge.
Neither saw the other until she stood directly in front of the excavation. He was lighting his pipe, his back towards her; she, thinking him to be about to leave the mine on his descent to the cabin, gayly called out:
"What's your hurry?"
Not dreaming of her dangerous proximity to the tunnel's mouth, he turned slowly, for the wind was fairly strong and he had not as yet secured a satisfactory light. He was about forty yards away. For one nerve-paralyzing second he was incapable of motion or speech. Then the pipe clattered on the slide-rocks and he was leaping like a cougar over the treacherous footing, a great cry bursting hoarsely from his white lips:
"Run! For God's sake, run! Away from the tunnel!"
Dazed by the awful fear in his voice, and misinterpreting the only two distinct words of his otherwise inarticulate command: "Run" and "Tunnel," she bolted obediently into the yawning mouth of the excavation. For a few seconds, with eyes blinded by the sudden transition from sun-glare to comparative darkness, she did not perceive the spluttering flare of the fuse. Then all at once came comprehension and in the shock of it she was as a marble statue. Paralyzed with horror at the awful death hissing there a scant five feet away, she seemed rooted to the ground; for the life of her she could not move hand or foot, standing numbly there waiting for the end. Each second seemed an eternity before his coming. His coming—to what? To share the horrible death that menaced her? She found her voice in one agonized scream of warning, but even as it left her lips he came dashing into the tunnel, shouting incoherent blasphemies and holding out both arms.
A pile of litter on the floor of the tunnel entrapped his foot. A treacherous stone turned beneath his flying tread, and wildly striving to regain his balance, he pitched forward to her feet, striking his head on the rocks. He lay very still, a thin stream of blood trickling down his forehead.
As a tigress protects her young, so did she cast her body between him and the fiery serpent hissing on the rock, her one thought being for his preservation. As she crouched above him there came vaguely into her mind the remembrance of a story told her in the long ago by her father, the story of a man who had saved his comrade by the plucking out of the burning fuse from a blast which was on the point of killing the man caught beneath some falling timbers. The details came painfully slow to her dazed mind and over there the fuse was hissing ominously.
Suddenly it was all clear to her and unhesitatingly she sprang to the shelf and clutched the smoking terror with both hands. One frantic tug and the deadly dynamite was dangling before her; with the swiftness of a swallow she reached the mouth of the tunnel and, summoning all her strength for one mighty effort, cast it far down the mountain side. Then she turned unsteadily and slowly groped her way, like one who is blind, to the silent figure on the tunnel floor.
Everything was swimming about her in a confused whirl; with a great effort she raised his head to her shoulder. A broad red stain spread over her white bodice but her eyes were unseeing, her lips passing searchingly over his face. As they found his mouth and rested there, a sharp explosion, followed by a tremendous rumble, jarred the air.
As though awakened from sleep by that detonation, Douglass opened his eyes. Her face was still upon his and he blinked uncomprehendingly. She was crying softly, helplessly, and his face was wet with her tears. Impulsively he put his arm around her and sat up erect.
With returning consciousness came remembrance and he cast his eyes fearfully towards the shelf, springing to his feet as he did so, with the girl firmly clasped in his arms. He took two steps towards the mouth of the tunnel and safety. Then he looked again at the little innocuous heap of sand; he passed his hand wonderingly over his eyes. There was a dull smear on the bronzed finger backs and he noticed the stain on her bodice.
"You are hurt!" His voice was husky with fear and sympathy. She shook her head negatively, not trusting herself to speak. "But the blast—the powder—where is it?"
"I threw it down the mountain side. You stumbled and fell. There was no other way."
He felt of his head tentatively; then he looked again at the stain on her bosom. He turned her face inquiringly to the light; upon lips and cheek lay a red like that on the back of his hand. In the semi-twilight his eyes grew luminous. Very tenderly he raised the tear-stained face and looked reverently into the dewy pools brimming over with that which made him close them with a kiss.
"Sweetheart!" he said softly. "Sweetheart!"
She put her white arms about his neck, and, clinging to him as though she would never let go, cried as if her heart would break.
From the head of the waterfall where she washed the jagged wound in his head, Douglass looking down to where she had thrown the dynamite, noted that the whole hillside was changed in appearance. Where once had been a shoulder-deep mass of loose slide-rock was now the bare face of the mountain, out of which cropped a ten-foot wide ledge of parti-colored rock which he instantly, even at that considerable distance, classified as quartz. In that one comprehensive glance he divined the whole truth. As a result of the violent explosion, the mass of loose rock had been set in motion and an avalanche had ensued; the whole mountain side had been denuded of its covering of detritus which now lay heaped up at the base of the declivity.
In the clear light a sheen glittered over those portions of the ledge where its surface had been freshly abraded by the mass of rock grinding over it in the avalanche's descent; it was indubitably quartz, quartz in place, the only body of it found in situ so far on that mountain. His rich float had been of quartz gangue! Very quietly he turned and put his arms about the girl, conviction growing every minute.
"Dearie, I think you have killed two birds with one stone. Do you see that projecting ledge of rock yonder? I am certain it is the blind lode I have been looking for. If it is, we will be rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice."
She laughed shyly and took his face between both pink palms.
"I am that already, Ken, dear." Very rich indeed was the treasure she laid on his lips. He caught her up to him fiercely, his face as white as the kerchief which she had bound about his brow. Unconsciously he was bruising her soft flesh, but she gloried in the pain of it.
Red McVey, coming over the crest of the ridge to investigate the explosion and the succeeding rumble of the avalanche which he had heard while hunting on the other slope, paused abruptly at sight of that tender tableau. Very cautiously, as one coming suddenly in the hunting trail upon a dangerous beast who is as yet unaware of the hunter's proximity, he took the rifle from his shoulder and cocked it, crouching as he did so to avoid detection and to insure a better aim. But even as his knee touched the ground a cold perspiration broke out all over his body; the red left his vision, something clicked in his throat, and licking his dry lips nervously, he lowered the hammer of his weapon and backed over the ridge out of sight.
Hand in hand the twain picked their way carefully down to the ledge. By a curious freak of chance the explosive had landed directly above the outcrop, and the ground about was strewn with fragments torn off by the concussion. One of the bits which Grace eagerly picked up was spangled with dull yellow points.
The man with his hand on the ledge looked out dreamily into the blue ether; the woman cuddled in the hollow of his arm looked only at him.
Mrs. Robert Carter was far too astute a politician to openly offer any opposition to her daughter's devotion for Douglass, though fully determined to unravel what she deemed a preposterous and altogether undesirable entanglement.
Having herself fought the hard fight against the ogres of Poverty and Adversity, she had no foolish illusions in the premises, and had long ago resolved that her daughter should be spared the grim heartaches that even love cannot wholly bar from the proverbial cottage. Her chief ambition was to see Grace established in a position commanding at the very outset all the amenities to which the girl had been accustomed from childhood, both of her children having come after Carter pere had achieved a substantial competence. There were many among the girl's suitors who offered this and more, and she felt a bitter impatience with the extravagance of youthful passion which now so perversely menaced all her plans.
While cordially conceding the beauty of love in the abstract, the concreteness of wealth and social position appealed far more potently to the world-worn old woman, who temporarily forgot her own girlish exaltations of days long gone in her apprehensions for her daughter's future.
Never was woman better qualified or disposed to appreciate youthful virility and sterling manliness; her personal esteem for Douglass was very high, and had it not been for the, to her, insuperable bar of his comparative poverty, she would have welcomed him with open arms. As it was, she was very indulgently disposed towards him. If his mines really developed into bonanza she would interpose no obstacle in his way. But in her wide experience she had known all too many just as promising prospects as his turn out miserable failures; when he had incontrovertibly established the value of his claims it would be time enough to consider his proposed alliance with her family.
All this she said to him with frank candor in a letter answering his request for her sanction to his engagement to Grace.
"I will give you two years," she concluded, "in which to demonstrate your ability to give her all the comforts to which she is accustomed. In the interim I shall take her abroad, and if at the expiration of that time you have 'made good,' and both of you are still of the same mind, I will give you my blessing with all my heart.
"But it must be distinctly understood that until then I recognize no manner of bond between you; she must be free to change her mind if she so chooses. I have no objection to a friendly exchange of correspondence between you during our absence, relying upon your honor to use no undue coercion. Please regard these stipulations as imperative and final."
He sent her a rather constrained acceptance and so it was arranged. Directly after the holidays Mrs. Carter and Grace sailed for Europe.
One balmy day in the following spring he was over at Tin Cup awaiting the coming of the stage. Two days before he had been advised by letter of the coming of the Brevoorts for a season's outing on their lately-acquired ranch. He had rather expected a letter from Grace by the same mail and was proportionately elated. Everything had gone well with him in the new year. He had secured the services of an experienced and altogether dependable miner, an old friend of his assaying days, to develop his mining claims, and the reports were eminently satisfying. With every foot of depth attained on the vein the ore grew better, and the property was yielding enough values to pay for its extensive exploitation. The ore chute, paying from grass roots down, was getting wider and richer; two promising "blind leads" had been struck in addition, and the opinion of all the visiting experts was that Douglass had struck it exceedingly rich. Should the improvement continue, his term of probation would be over before snow flew again. He did not need many more tons of that honeycombed quartz to satisfy Mrs. Carter's most stringent exactions.
He was therefore in a wonderfully complaisant frame of mind as old Timberline Tobe reined in his leaders with a flourish before Blount's hotel. Constance Brevoort, clad in an exceedingly well-fitting traveling costume of neutral gray, smiled her delight as he went forward with uplifted hands to assist her descent from the seat of honor on the box beside the driver. Of the two other passengers inside the stage he took small note; Brevoort could look after himself and be hand-shaken later. Just now the woman engrossed his whole attention.
Stiffened doubtlessly by her necessarily cramped position on the box throughout a half-day's jolting over rough mountain roads, she slipped awkwardly from the wheel and landed plump in his arms, her lips brushing his in her descent as he protectingly caught her close to save her from falling. His face was crimson, possibly from over-exertion, as he slowly released her. But even though the vice-like grip of his arms had been a moment or two overlong, Mrs. Brevoort made no protest; she only smiled at his discomposure and said somewhat ambiguously:
"Don't look so distressed, Mr. Douglass. I alone am to blame for that slip; and there have been no consequences."
He took her extended hand and shook it heartily. Into his eyes there crept a flicker of amusement tinged with audacity.
"I am not so sure of that," he said with pretended ruefulness, feeling in the breast pocket of his shirt. "My cigars are demolished. Were you really so glad to see me as all that?" She looked at him coquettishly through half-closed lids.
"Can you doubt, remembering how I threw myself into your arms in the recklessness of my transports?" She laughed unaffectedly, but underneath the dimples of her peachy cheeks spread the veriest wraith of a soft rose tint. For into his eyes had suddenly flamed something, a subtle spark that burned down through her body's jeweled sheath like a white-hot coal. A little frightened at the hot wave surging through her veins she was betrayed into another indiscretion.
"And you," she murmured seductively, "are you glad to see me?"
"I'll tell you later, when I am calm enough to phrase my joy in more conventional words than my present distraction permits." They both laughed a little constrainedly and he turned to greet the man who had just descended from the stage. Imagine his surprise to see, instead of the shriveled form of the financier, the portly bulk of a grinning white-headed old negro who was assisting an equally robust damsel of like ebon complexion, but considerably less years, to alight from the dusty vehicle.
Constance laughed at his frank bewilderment.
"Two family retainers from my girlhood's home, Uncle 'Rastus, my butler, and Lucindy, his daughter, my cook. At the last moment Mr. Brevoort was called away to Europe on business," she explained somewhat hurriedly. "He hopes to be able to join us in time for the fall hunting."
It was characteristic of the man that he did not mumble the conventional regrets over the defection of her husband; on the contrary, he did not hesitate to express his pleasure.
"That's nice!" was his rather startling comment to which, however, she took no exception, mischievously misinterpreting the reference of his words.
"Yes, I know you enjoy those hunting trips," she said demurely, "and Mr. Brevoort is even more enthusiastic. He says you are positively the most indefatigable man in the chase that he ever met. Have you chased much since we left?"
He glanced at her dubiously; she was the embodiment of naïve innocence as she stood there struggling with her pearl-colored suedes, the delicious color coming and going in her fresh, fair cheeks. He was not at all sure of her, and he hesitated a little as he caught up her valise and relieved her of her discarded wraps.
"I wonder if there was any double meaning in that?" he thought, watching her out of the corner of his eye; but it was this man's creed, as has been previously noted, to overlook no bets. Aloud he said:
"The open season ended the day you left, and I haven't been to town since."
She bit her lip in discomfiture; there was a prematureness about this frontier lance that made him exceedingly difficult to parry, skilled as she was in the subtle art of fence. The insolent assurance of that thrust through her guard angered and alarmed her.
"You will pay for that," she resolved mentally, wrathful at his coarse arrogance. But her frown was only that of gentle wonderment as she turned inquiringly. "The town! I do not understand. Is there any game to be hunted there?"
"Only faro, and poker, and roulette, with other divertisements of divers kinds and sorts," he said humorously. "But one does not have to hunt much for any of them so far as my experience goes. Yet I've even left the seductive tiger unbucked in his lair for over six long weary months. I've been so good that even the very thought of it hurts."
"You poor thing," she said with mock compassion; "how your talents have been wasted. What a pity that the virtue born of necessity is not entitled to commendation."
"Is there any virtue entitled to that?" he asked shamelessly. She drew a little apart from him, really shocked and not a little apprehensive.
"Certainly not that of Evolution," she said with some acerbity. "Against the stone ax and brutal strength of the Cave Man, woman's helpless trust, love and dependency are just as inadequate as it was in the beginning, æons ago. But even barbarians can, with profit, learn the lesson of decent forbearance."
"Stung!" His comical grimace and slangy confession of her sharper point completely disarmed her and she sheathed her rapier with a smile. But for the life of her she could not resist the temptation to bait this good-natured bear.
"After all, we are only a step removed from the Primitive," she said plaintively, "and in this wonderful environment of yours one comes actually within touch. Here we are at swords-points already, and only a few moments ago I was in your arms." Her heart was quaking at her great audacity as he made a sudden movement that brought him so near that his elbow grazed her shapely waist.
"Backward, oh! backward, turn, Time, in thy flight!" he hummed longingly. Unconsciously she swayed towards him for the fraction of an inch. She was even closer to the border-land than she had deemed.
Red McVey, coming for the mail, greeted them as they ascended the porch steps of the little hostelry. She very graciously laid her hand in his, and her face beamed with positive pleasure as he awkwardly congratulated her upon her splendid appearance.
"Well, little ole N'Yawk ain't done you no hurt as I kin see. Reckon I'll have to winter theah a spell mahself when mah caows come home," he said enthusiastically. "Yuah lookin' purtier 'n a red heifer."
Douglass grinned at her rosy confusion. "You've got a good eye for color, Red. But you ought to cultivate the virtue of forbearance, ought he not, Mrs. Brevoort?" But she scornfully ignored him and was rather profuse in her protestations to Red of her happiness at being back in "God's country" again.
At the dinner table that night Douglass maliciously reverted to the topic of forbearance. Turning to McVey he assumed a becoming gravity which the twinkle in his eyes belied.
"Say, old-timer, Mrs. Brevoort is skeptical of we poor cowpunchers' virtue; she thinks we have no power of forbearance. Can't you help me to convince her that we often keep from doing wicked things just for the pure love of being good."
Red, catching the mischievous note in his question, rose to the occasion manfully.
"Why, yuh ain't thinkin' that bad of us, are yuh?" he said with sorrowful reproach to Constance. "Indeed, ma'am, we are real gentle by spells. Why, I mind las' yeah when I was ridin' fences foh thu C Bar I got to thinkin' haow foolish it were o' me to keep hankerin' after thu delusions o' thu Alcazah, an' to keep wantin' to go oveh theah simultaneous an' waste my hawd eahned money on thu see-ductions o' thu flowin' bowl. So I braces up, an' says to thu devil o' temptation, kinda contemptuous-like, 'Hit thu back trail, Satan!'
"Every time I feels thu iniquity o' thust comin' on me I jes' swaps the price o' a drink from my sack to a leetle ole terbacca bag I totes especial foh thet puppos, and goes an' dips my beak in healthy alkali wateh like a sensibul, fohbeahing Christian should. It were two bits every time an' by thu time Chris'mas comes raound thu smoke bag were plumb full. I suttinly fohboah a heap thet summah."
Genuinely interested at the simple relation, Constance asked sympathetically: "And what did you do with the money so heroically saved, may I ask?"
"Well, I had thu price O' nine bottles o' booze in thu bag when I counted her oveh at Tin Cup on Chrismus eve. Theah's five bottles goes to a gallon, yuh know, so I rattles thu bones with thu perfessor an' o' cose I wins thu odd bottle. Then I blows six bits fer a two-gallon jug an'—"
Constance glared at him severely. Douglass laid his head on the table and cried.
The greater portion of the next day was spent by Constance in shopping and resting after her wearisome stage ride. Douglass had some saddlery matters to attend to and Grace's letter to answer. Red had volunteered to drive 'Rastus and Lucindy over to the VN ranch with the luggage and so it happened that Douglass and Mrs. Brevoort rode out together alone in the pleasant evening to her home-coming.
They jogged along very leisurely, talking only the veriest commonplaces after they had exhausted the more interesting topics of ranch and mine. Curiously enough, neither referred once to Grace Carter, her name not being mentioned throughout the whole journey. Toward the end of their ride both man and woman grew strangely silent. The white May moon was just peeping over the horizon as he dismounted before the door of the ranch house to assist her to alight.
As she released her foot from the stirrup and held out her hands, from somewhere far out on the prairie came the call of a wolf. Telepathically both turned toward the moonlit plain awaiting the answering cry; as it rang out in not unmusical cadence through the stilly night she shivered slightly and her hands trembled in his warm grasp. He leaned toward her, his eyes gleaming.
"Come," he said, masterfully. Shifting her left hand to his shoulder he threw his arm about her waist and lifted her from the saddle. But before her feet touched the ground he had gathered her up in his arms and was striding towards the house. Taken by surprise, she clung to him breathlessly, one arm still tightly clasped about his neck as he placed her feet upon the threshold. Very gently she disengaged herself from his embrace but made no effort to enter the house. He looked hungrily at her full red lips for a second, then stooped and laid his own upon the hand which he still retained.
"Welcome, oh, Queen, to your lair!" he said softly. "May you have good hunting."
Then, sombrero in hand, he bowed again and turning abruptly left her standing there silent in the white moonlight. Not until the shadows of the corral had swallowed him up did she so much as move a muscle.
Unto him a half hour later came old 'Rastus with her invitation to dine. When he finally joined her she was secretly relieved at the very presentable appearance he made in the modest suit of gray negligee which, he apologetically stated with engaging candor, was the nearest approximation he could make to full dress. All other cowboys of her acquaintance, while delightfully picturesque in their range costume, had looked disappointingly commonplace and uninteresting when clothed in civilized habiliments; but there was neithergaucherienor self-consciousness about this exceedingly self-possessed young fellow, whose evident familiarity with the niceties of etiquette came as an agreeable surprise. Every slave to Convention is more or less a snob, and she had been under the yoke a whole lifetime. Her relief at his perfect deportment changed to an irritating sense of chagrin as she realized her own obtuseness in not recognizing from the first that this man had assuredly been bred, if not born, a gentleman. How was she to know if he were not even mentally amused at her inexcusable lack of perspicacity?
The truth of the matter was that Douglass thought nothing at all about it; he was thinking only of how attractive this woman was—in a different way from Grace Carter.
Old 'Rastus he had captivated instanter by his critical commendation of the really superb wine which she had, whimsically, it must be confessed, and to the secret indignation of the old darkey, ordered served. 'Rastus had mumbled something about the casting of pearls, but he melted instantly at Douglass's evident appreciation.
"Chateau Yquem, is it not, and of a vintage surely previous to '57!" he averred with the confidence of a connoisseur, lovingly rolling the delicious liquor under his tongue. "You are an exaggerated Lady Bountiful, my dear Mrs. Brevoort. This is ambrosia for the gods rather than a tipple for an obscure cowpuncher!"
"Yes, this Yquem has been in our cellars since '59; so Mr. Brevoort informs me. I am extremely fortunate in having selected it since it meets with your favor!" Her tone was sweetly sincere and he was inordinately flattered. She on her part was not a little amazed at the anomaly of a mere ranch hand's knowledge of rare old vintages and looked at him with a new interest. He was surely going to be worth exploitation!
When the cloth had been removed they adjourned to a little room which had been fitted up as a den by Brevoort. Here the coffee was served, and over her cigarette she watched him deftly preparing the cognac and kirschenwasser with all the assurance of an epicure, the caraffe having been set beside him by the old servitor as a matter of course; there was no doubt now in 'Rastus's mind about this "cow-gentleman" being to the manner born.
It being an unusually mild night, the windows, which faced on the open prairie land to the north, were partly open. The air was sweet with the fragrance of the purpling lucerne, punctuated by the aroma of her Turkish tobacco. In the mellow light of the rose-tinted acetylene globe suspended overhead everything was invested with a deliciously soft warmth. Douglass, puffing luxuriously at his havana, was filled with a great conviction that he had not been so happy for years. This was what he would have when his mines were in bonanza and he had come to his own! But try as he would, he could not permanently establish Grace's presence on the divan over yonder; somehow the conditions did not lend themselves concordantly. The woman furtively watching him smiled intuitively; he was a very transparent young man, after all!
And yet how perfectly he fitted into the environment's scheme! In the soft rose light his clean-cut aquiline profile was as perfect as a well-chiseled cameo in red bronze. Vigor, strength and indomitable power breathed from every well-balanced line of his well-knit frame.
"Fit, and ready, to fight for his strong young life!" she was thinking admiringly, "a man among a thousand in these degenerate days. A 'running mate' who would go far with the wolf of his choosing. I wonder what he ever saw in that insipid goody-goody. She will tame him down to mediocrity, never realizing what she is desecrating, what she is robbing some other better-fitted woman of. She ought to have married Anselm!"
At the thought of her husband her face hardened. Very contemptuous did she wax in her merciless comparison of him with the stalwart young fellow sitting there so lordly in the arrogance of lusty manliness. Now that it was too late she realized that she had sold herself for a price! Of course Brevoort had paid, generously, magnificently, and without demur; but how had she benefited thereby? To the end only of being the leader of her social set, queen regnant of a symposium of sexless degenerates with whom she had not one mental or physical desire in common! The best proof of it was that she was here, far from their wearying inanities and hollow gilded gauds by deliberate choice. Her meditations terminated abruptly at this point; was that the real reason of her coming? She turned to him with a curious shyness, thankful for that rose-colored globe.
"You are fond of children, Mr. Douglass?" It was more an assertion than a question. His face lit up rarely.
"I love them!" he said, simply. "They are the sweetest flowers in God's garden!"
"Even as I do!" There was something strangely like a sob in her low voice, but she had not meant him to hear. "I congratulate you on your conquest of the little Blount girl; her adoration of you is actually idyllic!"
"Oh, Eulalie and I have been sweethearts for ages," he said, laughingly. "It was a case of love at first sight."
"Happy Eulalie!" she said, enviously. "She has been favored beyond the computation of the gods. That beatitude falls to the lot of but few of her sex."
"Are you voicing a personal grievance?" His eyes were full of amused incredulity. She smiled a little bitterly but evaded his question.
"What do you hear from Grace?" she asked, inconsequentially. He was sobered instantly.
"She is well; and enjoying herself, I gather from her last letter. They are on the wing constantly, you know, and it was unusually short. They are now headed for Venice, with a certain Lord Ellerslie in train. Do you happen to know him?" There was a mild anxiety in his tone.
"Yare Ellerslie? Yes, I know him very well. One of England's 'best' types; a fine gentleman of mildewed lineage. He Is immensely wealthy!"
"Oh! I say, don't rub it into a fellow!" he protested, laughingly, but his eyes held a glitter that caught Constance's attention disagreeably. She rather pitied Lord Ellerslie at that moment.
"Oh! he is perfectly innocuous," she hastened to assure him; "nearly every designing mamma has given him up as impossible. His price is above the rubies of any woman's offering!" Her lip curled scornfully. "Hismetieris platonics."
"And you don't believe in their possibility," he concluded, dryly. She eyed him narrowly.
"Do you?"
"Not in their putative purity at any event. Of course, I am not a competent authority and my circle of acquaintances is limited to people of flesh and blood. Imagine such an absurdity as platonics between—"
"Between—?" she prompted audaciously, her seductive face close his.
"Between you and me, for instance!" he finished, calmly, his cool demeanor betraying nothing of the seething volcano beneath that unruffled surface. She rose somewhat precipitately and went over and stood by the window.
Faint and eerie from the muffling mazes of some far-off coulie came again the wolf cry. She turned shudderingly away.
"It sounds like the wail of a lost soul!"
"Calling to another affinitive soul, neither of them knowing or caring, in the all-compensative ecstasy of their own making, that they have lost anything at all! Do you imagine that fellow is mouthing platonics out there?"
He had risen unconsciously and laid his hot hand on her bare arm; she shrank from it as though it burned her and deliberately placed the table between them. She rang the silver call bell.
"I can imagine nothing more to-night but that it is time to retire," she said, humorously. Before he could reply, Lucindy entered, bearing a salver on which was a glass of milk and a pitcher of water. Constance gave him her hand in gentle dismissal.
"Go to bed, Wolf," she said, mischievously, "and dream of—of platonics, as befits your rugged constitution. Personally, I am not equal to more than the inspirations of milk-and-water—as yet!"
As he opened the door the wolf howled in the distance. He turned with a smile of sinister significance as an answering call rang out in the night.
The fair hand holding the diluting pitcher wavered a trifle. A few drops of water failed of their destination and spattered on the table.