PART II (continued 4)

Ora made no reply. She was beaten but she was not ready to admit it.

“You may bet your life on one thing,” continued Ida. “You go with me or you don’t go at all, for I’ll stick to you like wet paint until this thing is settled once for all. Now just tell me what you meant a while back by Gregory’s resistance? When you found I wouldn’t consent to a divorce—of course you put him up to ask me, you traitorous little white devil—did you want him to elope with you?”

“Yes I did!”

“And he wouldn’t!”

“He—he would not sacrifice me——”

“Shucks! Where did you want him to go? To Europe?”

“Yes.”

“Good Lord! And what did you think you were going to do with him over there? Spoon in orange groves for forty years?”

“There are several thousand resources in Europe besides orange groves—but you would never understand——”

“Oh, don’t I understand? It’s I that does understand, not you, or you would never have made such an asinine proposition to Gregory Compton. Why on earth didn’t you propose some place with mines—Mexico, Alaska, China—Then you might have stood some show—but Europe—Gregory—Do you remember those American business men that always looked as if they had left their minds in an office at the top of a thirty-story building, and their bodies were being led round by a string? The vision of Gregory astray in Europe for the rest of his life would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Talk about the conceit of man. It isn’t a patch on that of a woman when she gets the bug inside her head that she can be ‘everything’ to a man. I can manage Gregory till doomsday when I get him back, but you’d lose him inside of six months no matter which way you got him——”

“That couldn’t be true! I recognised that he was mine—mine—the night we met before I left——”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, yes, I met him once before I went abroad with you—we talked for an hour——”

“And he was the man you wrote those letters to in Europe——”

“Yes.”

“And I your most intimate friend!”

“I never sent them, and you did not care for him then——”

“Oh, I don’t see you apologising if you had turned heaven into hell. You made up your mind then to have him, I suppose?”

“No. And not even when I came out here. I only wanted to be with him—know him a little better—have that much—Oh, I couldn’t make you understand any more than that I can suffer as much as if I were the best of women who had lost her husband by death. It was only after Mowbray came—there seemed a prospect——”

“Well, I don’t know that I blame you so much, for I certainly bluffed it pretty well. I can forgive you for that but not for meaning to make me out a strumpet and send me to the muck heap, disgraced for the rest of my life. Well, come along. Let us go straight to Gregory and let him decide.”

Ora did not move.

“It’s either that or you go back to Butte with me tonight and start for Europe tomorrow morning.”

“I know when I am beaten. I will leave. And don’t imagine that you have won because you are in the right. We have emerged from the dark ages of superstition, and we know that the wicked are not punished if they are strong enough. Nor are the virtuous rewarded for mere virtue—not once in ten thousand times. You have won because you are stronger than I. That is all.”

“It’s enough for me.”

Ora laughed. “Do you really believe that you can win him back? He’ll not forget me, because I can always fire his imagination. He is as indifferent to you as only a man can be when the woman is an old story.”

“That was a nasty one! But I’m not worrying. I have been at a disadvantage since I got back, thinking my only rival was a hole in the ground. But take this from me, Ora: when a woman knows where she stands, and has the inside track, and has her nerve with her, the man has no show whatever. Nor the other woman. I’ll get him back all right. And he’ll forget you. That’s a man’s long suit.”

“We’ll neither of us ever know, so it doesn’t matter. I shall never see him again. That is all that matters to me.”

“And Valdobia?”

“I shall marry him. I suppose—after a while.”

“I don’t mind saying that he is much too good for you.”

“Possibly. And he’ll love me the more.”

“And shall you tell him of this little interlude?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, I always have maintained that the woman who confessed anything to a man was a fool, but it certainly is a queer mix up.”

“I don’t know that I should so much mind telling him, after all. Men are too practical to resent any but the literal infidelity. And he is the only person living that understands me. Gregory does not and never would care to. Why could not I have had this madness for the one man who is really fitted to be my mate—whose ideas of life are my own, who has so much the same order of mind? Why should I love Gregory Compton, a man I not only cannot marry, but with whom I never could find a real companionship. My God! Why? Why?”

“There are several ways of getting ahead of life,” said Ida drily, “and one is not asking ‘Why’ too often. That’s just one of her little traps to keep you discontented. You and Gregory Compton! It certainly is funny. What did you talk about anyway?”

Ora threw out her arms and laughed wildly. “Ores. Ores. Ores. I tried to interest him in many of the things that interested me. He didn’t even try to understand what I was driving at. One night I offered to read to him—I had a lively new volume of memoirs in mind—he asked if I had any work on copper. I read to him for three hours from a book called ‘The Copper Mines of the World,’ technicalities and all. Of course he had read it before, but it seemed to delight him. We literally had no common meeting ground but ores, but we loved each other madly. Oh, don’t tell me that it was mere passion!” she broke out as angrily as if Ida had interrupted her. “Valdobia is attractive in far more ways and better looking. Gregory has met many women.—If that were all we should have bored each other long since—we never could have held each other’s imaginations while apart.—I tell you it is some deep primary bond—something that older races perhaps could explain. Why should we meet at all in this life——”

“I guess when we understand all the different brands of love we’ll vaccinate and be immune. Shut your teeth, Ora, and take your medicine. And for heaven’s sake let us get out of this damp hole. I’ll help you and Custer pack and we’ll go to Butte in the car I came out in. Have I got to go up that ladder!”

“No, we’ll go over to the Perch mine and ring for the skip there. My engineer is not on duty during the ‘graveyard shift.’”

XXV

ON the following morning Ida, having seen Ora on the train bound for Chicago, went at once to a public garage, rented the touring car she had used the night before, and was driven out to the mines. She walked up to the cabin on the crest of Perch of the Devil and, finding it empty, summoned a miner who was lounging near and bade him call Mr. Compton. The man asked to be allowed to use the telephone in the office, obtained connection with the second level of the mine, and announced in a few moments that the boss was on his way up.

Ida, who had dropped wearily into a chair, merely nodded as Gregory entered. He was as pale as a dark man can be, and his voice when he spoke sounded as if he had been running.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Has anything happened——”

“To Ora? Nothing, except that she is on her way East and to Europe. Tired, no doubt, but quite well.”

Gregory drew a short sigh of relief, and sat down before his table, shading his eyes with his hand. “Well?” he asked. “What is it?”

“I haven’t come out here to make a scene, or even to reproach you. I believe that I should have the self-restraint to ignore the subject altogether if it were not for that man, Whalen. Some one must put an extinguisher on him at once and you are the one to do it. That is why I am obliged to tell you that I found out yesterday about you and Ora. I had begun to believe there must be some woman in the case but I had not the least suspicion of Ora. I not only believed her to be the soul of honour, but I thought she was really in love with the Marchese Valdobia, a Roman who has everything to offer that a woman of her type demands, and to marry whom she had demanded a divorce from Mark. She has been tacitly engaged to him ever since we left Europe.”

Ida saw the muscles in Gregory’s long body stiffen as if he were about to spring, and his eyes glitter through the lattice of his fingers. But he made no comment, and after giving him time to assimilate her information, she added more gently:

“Console yourself with the reflection that she would have thrown him over for you. But she knows now what a mistake she would have made. Ora is one of those atavistic Americans that are far more at home in Europe than in the new world. She has gone where she belongs and Valdobia is her man.”

She paused again. He was still silent, and she continued less fluently: “Now I come to the unpleasant part for myself. To begin at the beginning: I made an enemy of little Whalen before I went abroad. He had the sublime impudence to kiss me one day, and I simply took him by the back of his neck and the seat of his pants and threw him out of the window. He has had it in for me ever since.”

In spite of the various emotions raging within him, Gregory laughed aloud at the picture. The atmosphere felt clearer. Ida went on with more confidence:

“Of course you know that Lord John Mowbray followed me here. He wanted me to get a divorce and marry him, as Valdobia had planned with Ora. I liked him well enough, but even if I had been free it never would have occurred to me to marry him, and no one knew better than he that I didn’t care a copper cent for him. His hope after he came here—a hope in which he was encouraged by Ora—was that, as you were so loudly indifferent, pride might drive me to leave you and make a brilliant marriage. Well, I was tempted for a moment. It was on the night of the day I had been down in the mine with you. I believed that I had given myself away absolutely, offered myself and been refused as casually as if I had been some woman of the streets; told you almost in so many words that I loved you and been invited with excruciating politeness to go to the devil.

“Well, that night I nearly went off my head. I had a whole mind, for a few moments, to ring up Mowbray and tell him that I would get my freedom and leave the country for ever. But that passed. I couldn’t have done it, and I knew it, in spite of the blood pumping in my head. I went out for a walk, for I had smashed a few things already. Then the mad impulse came to me to call on Mowbray. I knew that I’d treat him no better than I had treated Whalen if he so much as tried to kiss me. But I wasn’t afraid. He was too keen on marrying me to take any risks. What I wanted was to do something real devilish—to be more elegant, something quite the antithesis of all that is comme il faut. So I went. Mowbray wasn’t there. He had gone to the dance at the Country Club. I sat down to wait for him and fell asleep. When I awoke it was after one o’clock and I was still alone. I can tell you I got out pretty quick. I had slept the blood out of my head and I felt like a fool. I bribed the Jap not to tell Mowbray or anyone else.

“Well, the point of all this is—and the only reason I have told you—Whalen saw me go in and waited for me to come out. He believed that he had found his chance for revenge at last. No doubt he would have told you on the way to Helena, but he hasn’t the spunk of a road agent at the wrong end of a gun. So he took his tale to Ora when he got back.—But before I go any further I want you to say that you believe I had no wrong motive in going to Mowbray’s rooms. Of course a hundred people could testify that he did not leave the Country Club until three o’clock, but that is not the point with you.”

“I believe you,” said Gregory. He was intensely interested.

Ida drew a long sigh and the colour came back to her face. Her eyes, heavy with fatigue, sparkled. “Well! Whalen was all for drinking his cup of revenge down to the dregs. It wasn’t enough to spring a mine under me, he must see what I looked like when it blew up the first time. After he told Ora he posted into Butte and managed to get into my house unannounced—that maid has been fired. I was in the library on the other side of the room. The doorway was good enough for him. He told me. Some time I’ll tell you all I felt. After he had lit out with the Venus of Milo flying after him, I went stark mad. I made up what mind I had left to kill Ora and kill her quick.”

“What?” Gregory sat up and stared at her, his eyes wide open. And, astounded as he was, the immortal vanity of man thrilled responsively to the reckless and destructive passions he had inspired in these two remarkable women.

“I got a touring car and arrived at the foot of her hill—a little after eleven it was, I guess. There was a light in her living-room, and I made up my mind to wait until I was sure she was alone and in her bedroom. Then I intended to get in somehow or other and kill her with that stiletto she gave me in Genoa. It was a notion of hers that I had been one of the wicked dames of the Renaissance, and I just naturally took the hint. While I was waiting the light went out and almost immediately I saw her hurry down the path that led to her claim and go into her shaft house. I knew on the instant that she was going to you, and that she took that route to avoid being seen. My mind could grasp that much in spite of the fixed idea in it—that she was on her way to tell you Whalen’s story. This was true as I found out afterwards. She went that night, partly because she couldn’t keep it any longer, partly because she wanted to tell you when you were alone in your cabin at night and she could also bind you hand and foot with that Lorelei hair of hers. It takes the hyper-civilised super-refined Oras to stick at nothing when their primitive instincts loosen up.

“Well—I went into the shaft house, and listened until I no longer could hear her on the ladder. Then I followed. Glory! Shall I ever forget going down that ladder? I felt as if every muscle in my body were being torn up by the roots; and I had to carry the stiletto between my teeth. And pitch dark. All my clothes in the way every step. It was enough to take the starch out of tragedy, and I guess it would have flattened me out if it hadn’t been just the one thing that could make me madder still.

“I’ll give you the details of that scene some other time. I’m too tired now. It is enough to say that she had a pistol and made such an infernal racket with it—shooting at the roof—that something busted in my head and I came to. Then we had it out. She agreed to leave because she knew me too well to believe I had gone to Mowbray’s rooms for any horrid purpose, and he hadn’t been there anyway. I told her that if she told you it would have to be before me, and she knew that she couldn’t brazen it through. So I packed her and got her off this morning. That means that I had no sleep last night.”

She stood up and Gregory rose also. “Now, there are two things more,” she said with no lack of decision in her voice, whatever her fatigue of body. “You must settle Whalen, and you must move to Butte and live in my house, even if you are only there once or twice a week. Whalen, the moment he discovers that Ora has gone, will run about Butte defaming me, or carry the story to the papers. It wouldn’t do me much good to prove that Mowbray wasn’t there. People like to believe the worst, and in time would forget that Mowbray had been at the Club on that particular night. My set might be all right. But the rest—and my servants—and Ruby and Pearl! They always use the word ‘bad,’ and, as Ora says, an intrigue is only decent in a foreign language. It gives me the horrors to think of it. But if we are seen together twice a week, and you are known to be living in the house, however often you must be absent, nobody will listen to a story that is not headed toward the divorce court.”

“I’ll buy Whalen’s claim and tell him to get out of Montana. He’ll go! As for the rest of your programme—please be sure, Ida, that I stand ready to protect you now and always. You are not only my wife but an extraordinary woman, and I am very proud of you.”

“Oh, the extraordinary woman hasn’t been born yet, in spite of the big fight the sex is putting up,” said Ida lightly, as they left the cabin and walked down the hill. “When women really are extraordinary they will be just as happy without men as they now want to be with them. They try with all their might to be hard, and they can ring outside like metal, but inside they are just one perpetual shriek for the right man to come along—that is all but a few hundred thousand tribadists. But they’ve made a beginning, and one day they’ll really be able to take men as incidentally as men take women. Then we’ll all be happy. Don’t you fool yourself that that’s what I’m aiming at, though. I’m the sort that hangs on to her man like grim death.”

“You’re all right!” said Gregory, who, man-like, was automatically readjusting himself to the inevitable.

He handed her into the tonneau of the car, and tucked the robe about her. She gave his hand a hearty friendly shake, for she was much too wise and too tired for sentiment. “Don’t you worry about Ora,” she said. “Custer is with her and she has the drawing-room, and is probably sound asleep at this moment. It must be very restful to get a tragic love affair off your chest.”

And then the car rolled off and she fell asleep at once.