Front matter (continued 5)

Eight hundred thousand dollars! If the Amalgamated took up that stock, General Bent's crowd would have control of the Development Company and the Denver and Saguache Railroad Company. If Rita Cheyne's offers were genuine—if he chose to use her money to redeem that stock—he could place himself on some kind of financial footing, could entrench himself for a long battle over the railroad connections, which he might eventually win. There was a chance. He did not dare to call in Mulrennan to talk the matter over. Pete had been catching at straws for a week, and Jeff knew what his advice would be. His superstitious mind would look on Mrs. Cheyne's visit as a direct interposition of Providence, as a message and an injunction. Jeff began to think himself mad not to have accepted her proposition at once. It dangled before him temptingly—but he let it hang there like ripe fruit upon the vine, hesitating to reach forth and seize. He could not believe it was real. It was "too aisy," as Pete would have said. Was he losing his nerve? Was it that the last victories of his enemies had sapped some of his old assurance, or had he suddenly developed a conscience? He put his head in his hands and tried to think. If he won his fight he could double Rita Cheyne's money in a year. If he lost—and he had to think of that more and more each day—the stock might not be worth the paper it was written on. Rita knew all this, but she still believed in him—more even than he believed in himself. Women were funny. He couldn't understand, unless she had some motive which had not been revealed to him. There would be a string of some sort to that extraordinary proposition.

He got up at last and sent a message to the Home Ranch, ordering two horses to be sent to his office at three o'clock.

CHAPTER XX

La Femme Propose

The wagon-road to the "Lone Tree" skirted the mountains for a way and then wound through a nick in the foothills into a level vale of natural parks, meadows, and luxuriant grass, bordered by pines and cottonwoods, beneath which tiny streams meandered leisurely down to the plains below.

Mrs. Cheyne emerged from the scrub-oak delightedly.

"It's like a Central Park for Brobdingnags," she cried. "I feel as though Apache ought to have seven-league horseshoes. As a piece of landscape gardening it's remarkably well done, for Nature is so apt to make mistakes—only Art is unerring." She breathed deep and sighed. "Here it seems Nature and Art are one. But it's all on such a big scale. It makes me feel so tiny—I'm not sure that I like it, Jeff Wray. I don't fancy being an insect. And the mountain tops! Will they never come any nearer? We've been riding toward them for an hour, but they seem as far away as ever. I know now why it was that I liked you—because your eyes only mirrored big things—nobody can have a mountain for a friend without joining the immortal Fellowship. It makes it so easy to scorn lesser things—like bridge and teas. Imagine a mountain at an afternoon tea!"

Jeff rode beside her, answering in monosyllables. The road now climbed a wood of tall oaks, rock-pines, and spruces, through which the sunlight filtered uncertainly, dappling fern and moss with vagrant amber. Somewhere near them a stream gushed among the rocks and a breeze crooned in the boughs. Rita Cheyne stopped talking and listened for she knew not what. There was mystery here—the voice of the primeval, calling to her down the ages. She glanced at Jeff, who sat loosely on his horse, his gaze on the trail. She had believed he shared her own emotions, but she knew by the look in his eyes that his thoughts were elsewhere. She spoke so suddenly that he looked up, startled.

"Why don't you say something? This place makes me think about Time and Death—the two things I most abhor. Come, let's get out of here."

Apache sprang forward up the trail at the bidding of his mistress, whose small heels pressed his flanks, again and again, as she urged him on and out into the afternoon sunlight beyond, while Jeff thundered after. He caught her at the top of a sand-ridge half a mile away, where they pulled their horses down to a walk.

"What was the matter?" said Jeff. "You rode as if the Devil was after you."

"Oh, no—I'm not afraid of the Devil. It's the mystery of the Infinite. That wood—why don't the dead oak-branches fall? They look like gibbets. Ugh!" She shuddered and laughed. "Didn't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"Spooky."

"No. I camped there once when I was prospecting. That stream you jumped was Dead Man's Creek."

"He must be there yet, the dead man. It was like a tomb. Who was he?"

"A soldier. He deserted from Fort Garland and was killed by some Mexicans. They buried him under a pile of stones."

"What a disagreeable place. It's like a cemetery for dead hopes. I won't go back; you'll have to take me around some other way."

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of melancholy—I hate unhappiness. I was born to be amused—I won't be unhappy," she said almost fiercely. "Why should I be? I have everything in the world that most people want. If I see anything I want and haven't got, I go and get it."

"You're lucky."

She shrugged. "So people say. I do as I please. I always have and always will. You were surprised to see me here. I told you why I came. I wanted to see you. You were the only person in New York who did not bore me to extinction. If it gives me pleasure to be here, this is the place where I ought to be. That's logical, isn't it?"

"It sounds all right. But you won't stay here long," he said.

"Why not?"

"You couldn't stand it. There's nothing to do but ride."

"I'd rather ride than do anything else."

Jeff looked straight forward over his horse's ears, his eyes narrowing, his lips widening in a smile.

"Well—if you don't see what you want—ask for it," he said slowly.

"I will. Just now, however, I don't want anything except an interest in your business. You're going to let me have it, aren't you, Jeff? You'd take some stranger in. Why not me? I'm the most innocuous stockholder that ever lived. I always do whatever anybody tells me to do."

"You don't realize the situation. I've told you I'm in a dangerous position. With that stock in my possession again, all my holdings would be intact and I might stand a long siege—or perhaps be able to make a favorable compromise—but there's no certainty of it. I don't know what they've got up their sleeves. As it is, I stand to lose the greater part of my own money, but I'm not going to lose yours."

"I don't believe you're going to lose. I'm not quite a fool. Those papers you showed me don't prove anything. The Development Company has two hundred thousand acres of land worth twenty dollars an acre and the coal fields besides. That's good enough security for me."

"It would be good enough security for any one if we had our connection. I could make you a lot of money." He broke off impatiently. "See here, Rita, don't press me in this matter, I'd rather wait a while. I've got a few days before those notes are due. Something may turn up——"

"Which will let me out—thanks, I'm not going to be left out. I know what you've done in these mountains and in this country, and I believe in you as much as I ever did. I'd like you to let me help you, and I'm not afraid of losing—but if I do lose, it won't kill me. Perhaps I'm richer than you think I am. I'm willing to wait. You'll be rich again some day, and I'll take my chances. They can't keep you down, Jeff—not for long."

Jeff thrust forth a hand and put it over hers.

"You're solid gold, Rita, and you're the best friend I ever had. I can't say more than that."

She smiled happily. "I've been hoping you'd say that. It's worth coming out here for. I want to prove it, though—and I hope you'll let me."

The road now turned upward toward the railroad grade. As they reached the crest of the hill Jeff pointed to the left at the mills and the smelter buildings hanging tier on tier down the side of the mountain. Below in a depression of the hills a lake had formed, surrounded by banks of reddish earth. The whole scene was surpassing ugly, and the only dignity it possessed was lent by the masses of tall black stacks, above which hung a pall of smoke and yellow gases. Rita Cheyne gasped. "So that's the bone of contention? I thought it would be something like the New York Public Library or the Capitol at Washington! Why, Jeff, it's nothing but a lot of rusty iron sheds!"

"Yes," he drawled, "we don't go in much for architecture out here. It's what's inside those sheds that counts. We've got every known appliance for treating ore that was ever patented, with a wrinkle or two the Amalgamated hasn't."

They rode around the lake while Wray explained everything to her, and then up the hill toward the trestles and ore-dumps of the "Lone Tree" mine. Wray's struggles for a right-of-way to the markets of the country showed no reflection here. From two small holes in the mountain side cars emerged at intervals upon their small tracks and dumped their loads at the mill, from which there came a turmoil of titanic forces. Jeff offered to show his companion the workings, but she refused.

"No, I think not," she said. "It's too noisy here. I haven't finished talking to you, and I want to ride."

And so they turned their horses' heads into another trail, which descended among the rocks and scrub-oak, after a while emerging at the edge of a great sand-dune which the wind had tossed up from the valley below—a hill of sand a thousand feet high, three miles wide and six miles long, a mountain range in miniature, in which trees, rocks, and part of a mountain were obliterated. Even the Great Desert had not presented to Rita Cheyne such a scene of desolation. Their horses stopped, sniffed the breeze, and snorted. Jeff pointed into the air, where some vultures wheeled.

Mrs. Cheyne shuddered. "It looks like Paradise Lost. We're not going there?"

"No—I only wanted you to see it. There's a thousand million dollars of gold in that sandpile."

"Let it stay there. I think it's a frightfully unpleasant place. Why do you show me all these things when all I want to do is to talk?" She turned her horse's head, and they followed a slight trail between groves of aspen trees, a shimmering loveliness of transparent color. "You're not giving me much encouragement, Jeff. You didn't believe in my friendship in New York, but you're trying your best to keep me from proving it here."

"I do believe it now. Didn't I tell you so?"

"Yes, but you don't show it. What do you think my enemies in New York are saying of my disappearance? What will they say when they know I've come out here to you? Not that I care at all. Only I think that you ought to consider it."

"I do," he said briefly. "Why do you make such a sacrifice?"

"I never make sacrifices," she said, eluding him skillfully, "even for my friends. Don't make that mistake. I've told you I came because I'd rather be here than in New York. If I heard that your financial enemies were trying to ruin you, that only made me the more anxious to come. Besides, I had an idea that you might be lonely. Was I right?"

"Yes—I am."

"Was, you mean."

"Yes—was," he corrected. "I've been pretty busy, of course, night as well as day, but after New York this place is pretty quiet."

"Did you miss me?"

"Yes," frankly, "I did—you and I seem to get on pretty well. I think we always will."

"So do I. I've always wondered if I'd ever meet a man who hadn't been spoiled. And I was just about ready to decide that he didn't exist when you came along. The discovery restored my faith in human nature. It was all the more remarkable, too, because you were married. Most married men are either smug and conceited, or else dejected and apprehensive. In either case they're quite useless for my purpose."

"What is your purpose?" he asked.

"Psychological experiment," she returned glibly. "Some naturalists study beetles, others butterflies and moths. I like to study men."

"Have you got me classified?"

"Yes—you're my only reward for years of patient scientific endeavor. The mere fact that you're married makes no difference, except that as a specimen you're unique. Do you wonder that I don't want to lose you?"

"I'm not running away very fast."

"No. But the fact remains that you're not my property," she answered, frowning. "I can't see—I've never been able to see—why you ever married, any more than I can see why I did. I'm quite sure that you would have made me an admirable husband, just as I'm sure that I would have made you an admirable wife. You don't mind my speaking plainly, do you? I'm thinking out loud. I don't do it as a rule. It's a kind of luxury that one doesn't dare to indulge in often. I have so many weak points in which you are strong, and I have a few strong ones in which you are weak, we could help each other. You could make something of me, I'm sure. I'm not as useless as I seem to be; sometimes I think I have in me the material to accomplish great things—if I only knew where to begin, or if I had some one who is in the habit of accomplishing them to show me how. That is why I wanted to help you. It struck me as a step in the right direction."

"It was," he ventured, "only it was too big a step."

"One can't do big things by halves," she insisted. "Money is the only thing I have that you lack. It is the only thing that I can give—that's why I want to give it—so that you can use it as a measure of my sincerity. I'd like to make you happy, too——" She paused, and her voice sank a note. "Why should you be unhappy? You don't deserve it. I know you don't. I haven't any patience with women who don't know a good thing when they have it."

"Perhaps I'm not as good a thing as I seem. You yourself are not beyond making mistakes, Rita."

"Oh, Cheyne? I didn't make that mistake, Cheyne did. He thought marriage was a sentimental holiday, when everybody nowadays knows that it's only a business contract. Don't let's talk of Cheyne. I can still hear the melancholy wail of his 'cello. I want to forget all of that. You have helped me to do it. I've been looking at you from every angle, Jeff Wray, and I find that I approve of you. Your wife has other views. She married you out of pique. You married her because she was the only woman in sight. You put a halo around her head, dressed her up in tinsel, set her on a gilt pedestal, and made believe that she was a goddess. It was a pretty game, but it was only a game after all. Imagine making a saint of a woman of this generation! People did—back in the Dark Ages—but the ages must have been very dark, or they'd never have made such a mistake. I've often thought that saints must be very uncomfortable, because they were human once. Your wife was human. She still is. She didn't want to be worshipped. She hadn't forgotten my cousin Cortland, you see——"

"What's the use of all this, Rita?" said Wray hoarsely. "I don't mind your knowing. Everybody else seems to. But why talk about it? Let sleeping dogs lie."

She waved her hand in protest. "One of the dearest privileges of friendship is to say as many disagreeable things as one likes. I'm trying to show you how impossible you are to a woman of her type, and how impossible your wife is to you."

"I'd rather you wouldn't."

"She marries you to prove to my cousin Cortland that he isn't the only man in the world, and then spends an entire winter in New York proving to everybody that he is. There hasn't been a day since you left that they haven't been together, riding, motoring, going to the theatre and opera. It has reached the point when people can't think of asking one of them to dinner without including the other. If you don't know all this, it's time you did. And I take it as a melancholy privilege to be the one to tell you of it. It's too bad. No clever woman can allow herself to be the subject of gossip, and when she does she has a motive for what she's doing or else she doesn't care. Perhaps you know what Mrs. Wray's motive is. If you have an understanding with her you haven't done me the honor of telling it."

"No," he muttered, "I'm not in the habit of talking of my affairs. You know we don't get along. No amount of talking will help matters."

"What are you going to do?"

Wray's eyes were sullen. Rita Cheyne chose to believe that he was thinking of his wife. But as he didn't reply at once she repeated the question. It almost seemed as though her insistence annoyed him, but his tone was moderate.

"What is it to you, Rita?"

She took a quick glance at him before she replied.

"It means a good deal to me," she went on more slowly. "To begin with, I haven't any fancy for seeing my best friend made a fool of by the enemies of his own household. It seems to me that your affairs and hers have reached a point where something must be done. Perhaps you've already decided."

"I've left her—she's in love with Cort Bent. I have proof of it. We made a mistake, that's all."

"Of course you did," she said. "I'm glad that you acknowledge it. Are you going back to New York?"

"I haven't decided. That depends on many things. She thinks I'm in love with you."

They had come to a piece of rough ground sown with boulders and fallen trees, through which their horses picked their way carefully. Rita Cheyne watched the broad back of her companion with a new expression in her eyes. He had never seemed so difficult to read as at this moment, but she thought that she understood and she found something admirable in his reticence and in his loyalty to his wife. In a moment the trail widened again as they reached the levels, and her horse found its way alongside his.

"She thinks you're in love with me? What does she know about love? What do I know about it? or you? Love is a condition of mind, contagious in extreme youth, but only mildly infectious later in life. Why should any one risk his whole future on a condition of mind? You feel sick but you don't marry your doctor or your trained nurse because he helps to cure you. Why don't you? Simply because you get well and then discover that your doctor has a weak chin or disagreeable finger ends. When you get well of love, if you marry to cure it, there's nothing left but Reno. I don't believe in love. I simply deny its existence—just as I refuse to believe in ghosts or a personal Devil. I resent the idea that your wife should believe you're in love with me. You find pleasure in my society because I don't rub you the wrong way, and I like you because I find less trouble in getting on with you than with anybody else."

"You're a cold-blooded proposition, Rita," said Wray smiling.

"Yes—if it's cold-blooded to think—and to say what one thinks. But I'm not so cold-blooded that I could marry one man when I liked another—a man with whom I had no bond of sympathy. Cheyne was the nearest approach I could find to the expression of a youthful ideal—people told me I was in love with him—so I married him. Of course, if I had had any sense—but what's the use? I've learned something since then. To-day I would marry—not for love, but for something finer—not because of a condition of mind or a condition of body, but because of a stronger, more enduring relation, like that between the lime and sand that build a house. I'd marry a man because I wanted to give him my friendship and because I couldn't get on without his friendship, and if the house we built would not endure, then no marriage will endure."

"You mean, Rita," Wray interrupted with sober directness, "that you'd marry me if you could?"

She flushed mildly. "I didn't say so. I said I would marry for friendship because it's the biggest thing in the world. I don't mind saying I'd marry you. It's quite safe, because, obviously, I can't."

Jeff looked at her uncertainly and then laughed noisily.

"Rita, you're a queer one! I never know when the seriousness stops and the fun begins."

She smiled and frowned at the same time.

"The fun hasn't begun. I mean what I say. Why shouldn't a woman say what she thinks? A man does. I shock you?"

"No—it's part of you somehow. Speak out. I'll tell you whether I believe you or not when you're through."

"I suppose I'm what people call a modern woman. If I am, I'm glad of it. Most women fight hard for their independence. I've simply taken mine. I say and do and shall always say and do precisely what comes into my mind. I've no doubt that I'll make enemies. I've already succeeded in doing that. I'll also probably shock my friends—but I've thrown away my fetters and refuse to put them on again because some silly prig believes in living up to feminine traditions. I haven't any sympathy with tradition. Tradition has done more to hinder the enlightened development of the individual than any single force in history. Tradition means old fogyism, cant and hypocrisy. I never could see why, because our fathers and mothers were stupid, we have to be stupid, too. Imagine an age in which it was not proper to cross one's legs if one wanted to—an age of stiff-backed chairs, to sit in which was to be tortured—when every silly person denied himself a hundred harmless, innocent amusements simply because tradition demanded it! We live in an age of reason. If a woman loves a man, why shouldn't she tell him so?"

CHAPTER XXI

L'homme Dispose

Jeff Wray had listened in curiosity, then in amazement, his eyes turned toward the Saguache Peak, whose snow-cap caught a reflection of the setting sun. He had accustomed himself to unusual audacities on the part of his companion, but the frankness of her speech had outdone anything he could remember. When he turned his look in her direction it was with a shrewd glance of appraisement like the one she felt in the morning when she had first appeared in his office. As they reached an opening in the trees Jeff halted his horse and dismounted.

"It's early yet. Let's sit for a while. Throw your bridle over his head. He'll stand."

Mrs. Cheyne got down, and they sat on a rock facing the slope, which dropped away gently to the valley. Jeff took out his tobacco and papers and deftly rolled a cigarette, while Rita Cheyne watched him. He offered to make her one, but she refused.

"You've got me guessing now, Rita," he said with a laugh. "More than once in New York I wondered what sort of a woman you really were. I thought I'd learned a thing or two before I came away, but I'll admit you've upset all my calculations. I've always known you were clever when it came to the real business of disguising your thoughts. I know you never mean what you say, but I can't understand anybody traveling two thousand miles to create a false impression. You know as well as I do that all this talk of yours about friendship is mere clever nonsense. I know what friendship means, and I guess I know what love means, too, but there isn't any way that you can mix them up so that I won't know one from the other."

"I'm not trying to mix them up."

"You're trying to mix me up then." He took her hand in his and made her look at him. "You've been playing with me for some time. I was a different kind of a breed from anything you'd been used to in New York, and you liked to wind me up so that you could see the wheels go 'round. You've had a lot of fun out of me in one way or another, and you still find me amusing."

She stopped indignantly.

"Don't you believe in me?"

"No. The things you say are too clever to be genuine for one thing. You're too cold-blooded for another."

"One can't think unless one is cold-blooded."

"When a woman's in love she doesn't want to think."

"I'm not in love—I simply say I'll marry you, that's all."

"You're talking nonsense."

"I never was saner in my life. I want you to believe in my kind of friendship."

"Eight hundred thousand dollars' worth of friendship is not to be sneezed at."

"Stop, Jeff, you're brutal. I won't listen."

"You've got to. I've listened to you. Now you must listen to me, and I'm going to make you play the game with your cards above the table. So far as I can understand, you hold the New York record for broken hearts to date, and I was warned that you had strewn your wrecks along the whole front of Central Park East. But I suppose I was too much flattered when you showed me attention to take to my heels. I liked you and I wanted you to like me. Perhaps we both liked each other for the same reason—with the same motive—curiosity. You put me in odd situations just to see what I'd do. I liked to be with you. You purred like a kitten in the sun, and I liked to hear you, so I was willing to perform for that privilege. You claimed me for a friend, but you tried your best to make me lose my head. That's true, you can't deny it. I didn't lose it, because—well, because I had made up my mind that I wouldn't. I don't know whether you were disappointed or not, but I know you were surprised, because you weren't in the habit of missing a trick when you played that game."

She withdrew her hand abruptly and turned her head away. "That isn't true," she murmured. "You must not speak to me so."

"I've got to. Every word of what I say is true—and you know it."

"It's not true now."

"Yes, it's true now. I know how much you really care about me. You've got so much in life that you're never really interested in anything except the things you can't get. You like me because you know I'm out of your reach and you can't have me even if I wanted you to. You're a great artist, but I don't think you really ever fooled me much. You like to run with a fast and Frenchy set just because it gives your cleverness a chance it couldn't have with the Dodos, but you don't mind being talked about, because your conscience is clear; you like the excitement of running into danger just to prove your cleverness in getting out of it. See here, Rita, this time you're going too far. I suppose I ought to feel very proud of the faith you put in me and your willingness to trust yourself so completely in my hands. I guess I do. But things are different with me somehow. I told you I was going to Hell pretty fast, and I'm not in a mood to be trifled with."

"I'm not trifling." She had caught a sinister note in his voice and looked up at him in alarm.

"There's a way to prove that."

"How?"

"This!"

He put his arms around her, turned her face to his, and held it there while he looked a moment into her eyes. But she struggled and held away from him, suddenly discovering something unfamiliar in the roughness of his touch and the expression in his eyes.

"Let me go!" she cried, struggling desperately to be free.

"You'll kiss me."

"No—never, not after that."

"After what?"

"The way you speak to me. You're rough——"

"I'll not let you go until you tell me why you came here. If you love me, you'll look in my eyes and tell me so."

"I don't love you," she panted, still struggling. "I never shall. Let me go, I say!"

He laughed at her. Her struggles were so futile. Art could not avail her here. She realized it at last and lay quietly in his arms, her eyes closed, her figure relaxed, while he kissed her as he pleased.

"Will you tell me you love me?"

"No. I loathe you."

Then she began struggling again; he released her, and she flung away and stood facing him, her hat off, hair in disorder, cheeks flaming, her body trembling with rage and dismay.

"Oh, that you could have touched me so!"

"Why, Rita——" he began.

"Don't speak to me——" She moved toward the horses. "I'm going," she asserted.

"Where?"

"To Mesa City."

"How can you? You don't know the way."

"I'll find the way. Oh——" She stamped her foot in rage and then, without other warning, sank on a rock near by and burst into tears.

Jeff Wray rose uncertainly and stared at her, wide-eyed, like other more practiced men in similar situations, unaccountably at a loss. He had acted on impulse with a sense of fitting capably into a situation. He watched her in amazement, for her tears were genuine. No woman was clever enough to be able to cry like that. There was no feminine artistry here. She was only a child who had made the discovery that her doll is stuffed with sawdust. He realized that perhaps for the first time he saw her divested of her artifice, the polite mummery of the world, the real Rita Cheyne, who all her life had wanted to want something and, now that she had found what it was, could not have it just as she wanted it. It was real woe, there was no doubt of that, the pathetic woe of childhood. He went over to her and laid his hand gently on her shoulder. But she would not raise her head, and it almost seemed as though she had forgotten him. He stood beside her for some moments, looking down at her with a changing expression. The hard lines she had discovered in his face were softened, the frown relaxed, and at his lips there came the flicker of a smile.

"I—I'm sorry," he said at last. "I—I made a mistake, Rita. I made a mistake."

The sobs began anew.

"How—how could you—treat me so?"

There was no reply to that, so he stood silently and waited for the storm to pass. Meanwhile he had the good taste not to touch her again. But as the sobs diminished he repeated:

"I made a mistake, Rita. You made me think——"

"Oh!" only. Her face appeared for a moment above her arms and then instantly disappeared. "You're odious!"

"Why, Rita," he said with warm frankness, "how could I believe anything else? All your talk of friendship; why, you asked me to marry you. What did you expect of me?"

"Not that—not what you did—the way you did it."

"You forgave me once."

She raised her head, careless of the tears which still coursed.

"Yes, I forgave you then. But not now. I can't forgive you now. No man ever kissed a woman the way you kissed me unless he is mad about her—or despises her."

"Despises——"

"Yes. You might as well ask me to forgive you for murdering my brother. You've killed something inside me—my pride, I think. I can never—never forget that."

She got up and turned her back to him, fingering for her handkerchief. She had none. He slowly undid the kerchief from around his own neck and put it in her hand.

"Don't cry, Rita."

"Cry?" She wheeled around, still staunching her tears. "No, I'll not cry. I was a fool to cry. I'll not cry any more. I cried because—because I was disappointed—that any one I trusted could be so base."

"I'm not so dreadful as all that. You must admit——"

"I'll admit nothing—except that I made a mistake, too. It hasn't been a pleasant awakening. I know now what those kisses meant."

Wray's incomprehension was deeper.

"I wish I did," he said. "I was sure they wouldn't do you any harm. You wouldn't have been so frank with me if you hadn't been pretty sure of yourself."

"That was my mistake. I was so sure of myself that I didn't think it necessary to be sure of you." And while Jeff was trying to understand what she meant, she went on:

"Those were not my kisses. They were impersonal—and might have been given to any woman—that is, any woman who would allow them. Each of them a separate insult—Judas kisses—treacherous kisses—kisses of retaliation—of revenge——"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"You've been using me to square your accounts with your wife—that's all," scornfully. "As if you didn't know."

He flushed crimson and bit his lips. "That's not true," he muttered. "What does it matter to my wife? Why should she care who I kiss—or why?"

"It doesn't matter to her, I suppose," she said, slightly ironical; "she is her own mistress again, but it does to you. Curiously enough you're still in love with your wife. She's in love with somebody else. Naturally it wounds your self-esteem—that precious self-esteem of yours that's more stupendous than the mountain above you. She hurts you, and you come running to me for the liniment. Thanks! You've come to the wrong shop, Mr. Wray."

Jeff's brows darkened. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but thought better of it. As Rita Cheyne took up the bridle of her horse and led him to a rock that she might mount, Jeff interfered.

"One moment, Rita. I think we'd better have this thing out. I'm beginning to understand better the width of the breach between us—it's widened some to-day—and I don't believe you're going to try to make it up to-morrow. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to have any more misunderstandings, either. I want you to forgive me if you can. I've cared for you a good deal—enough to make me sorry you were only fooling. Things don't seem to be going my way, and I've had lot of thinking to do that hasn't made me any too cheerful. I don't seem to see things just the way I did. This fight has made me bitter. I've got everything against me—your world, the organized forces of your world against a rank outsider. I belong to the people who work with their hands. I've always been pretty proud of that. I went East and mixed up with a lot of your kind of people. I had a good time. They asked me to their houses, gave me their wine and food. They knew what they were about. They had need of me, but no matter what they said or did they never for a moment let me forget what I'd come from. You were the only one of all that crowd who tried to make me feel differently. Was it any wonder that I was grateful for it?"

"Your gratitude takes a curious form."

He held up a hand in protest.

"Then you—you liked me because I said just what I thought whenever I thought it, but even with you I never forgot it wasn't possible for us ever to reach an understanding of perfect equality. You played with life—you had been taught to. Life is a kind of joke to you. People are incidents, only important when they give you amusement. I've been more important than others for that reason—because I gave you more amusement than others, but there's never been any doubt that I was only an incident. To me life is a grim problem—I've felt its weight, and I know. To-day you talked of making a marriage as I would speak of making a cigarette. It was too cold-blooded even for humour——"

"You refuse me then, do you, Jeff?" she laughed. But he made no reply to her banter.

"I've done with marriage," he went on. "I tried it and I failed, just as you tried it and failed, but I'm not ready, as you are, to make a joke of it. Failures are not the kind of things I like to joke about. You joke because joking makes you forget. I'm not trying to forget. I couldn't if I wanted to. I've learned that out here. My wife can do as she likes. If she wants to marry Cort Bent I'll give her a divorce, but as for me, I've done with it—for good."

Jeff had sunk to the rock beside her, his head in his hands, while she stood a little way off looking down at him. Their relative attitudes seemed somehow to make a difference in her way of thinking of him. In spite of the light bitterness of her mood, she, too, felt the weight of his thoughts.

"Do you mean to say," she murmured, half in pity, half in contempt, "that you still love your wife as much as this?"

But he made no reply.

"It's really quite extraordinary," she went on with a manner which seemed to go with upraised brows and a lorgnon. "You're really the most wonderful person I've ever known. This is the kind of fidelity one usually associates with the noble house-dog. I'm sure she'd be flattered. But why will you give her a divorce? Since you're not going to marry—what's the use?"

He rose and went to the horses. "Come," he said, "it's getting late. Let's get back."

She refused his help, mounted alone, and silently they rode down the slope through the underbrush, where after a while Jeff found a trail in the open.

"Does this lead to Mesa City?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Good-by, then." She flourished her hand and, before he realized it, was off and had soon disappeared from sight. He urged his horse forward into a full gallop, but saw that he could not catch her. Apache was the faster horse, and his own animal carried too much weight. So after a few miles he gave up the race, walked his winded horse, and gave himself up to his thoughts.

The exercise had refreshed his mind, and he was able to think with calm amusement of the little comedy in which he had just been an actor. What a spoiled child she was! He couldn't understand why he had ever been afraid of her. It was only pity he felt now, the pity of those tears, the only really inartistic thing Rita had ever been guilty of, for her face had not been so pretty when she cried. And yet they appealed to him more strongly than any token she had ever given him. What did they mean? He had hurt her pride, of course—he had had to do that, but somehow his conscience didn't seem to trouble him much about the state of Rita's heart. Love meant something different to him from the kind of cold, analytical thing Rita Cheyne was capable of. If it hadn't been for those tears! They worried him.

As he reached the edge of a wood he caught a glimpse of her just disappearing over the brow of a hill, half a mile away. So he urged his horse forward. It wouldn't do to have her ride into Mesa without him. He rode hard and suddenly came upon her kneeling at the border of a stream, dipping his bandana into the water and touching her eyes. When she saw him she looked up pertly, and he saw that she was only a child washing its face.

"Hello!" she said. "I was waiting for you. Do you see what I'm doing? It's a rite. Do I look like Niobe? I'm washing my hands—of you."

Jeff got down and stood beside her.

"Do be sensible, Rita."

"I am—am I clean? You haven't a powder puff about you—have you?"

"You're going to tell me you forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive. If you think there's anything to forgive, I'll forgive—of course." She got up from her knees, wiping her face, sat down on a tree trunk, and motioned him to sit beside her.

"Jeff," she said, "I've a confession to make. You know what it is, because you're cleverer than you have any right to be. I don't love you really, you know, and I'm pretty sure it isn't in me to love any one—except myself. It has always made me furious to think that I couldn't do anything with you. From the first I set my heart on having you for myself, not because I wanted to laugh at you—I couldn't have done that—but because you were in love with your wife."

"Why—do you hate her so?"

"I don't. I don't hate any one. But she irritated me. She was so self-satisfied, so genuine, so handsome—three things which I am not." She waited for him to contradict her, but Jeff was frowning at vacancy.

"Just to satisfy my self-esteem—which is almost as great as yours, Jeff Wray—I would have moved mountains to win, and I even let you drag my pride in the dust before I discovered that I couldn't. I die pretty hard, but I know when I'm dead."

"Don't, Rita; you and I are going to be better friends than ever."

"No, Jeff, I'm going East to-morrow. I don't want to see you. To see you would be to remind me of my insufficiencies."

"You've made a friend."

"No," shaking her head, "that won't do. It never does. I may have tried to deceive you, but I know better. Friendship is masculine—or it's feminine. It can't be both. I'm going away at once. I'm not going to see you again."

"Oh, yes, you are. To-morrow we'll——"

"No. I'd go to-night if there was a train. I want you to do one thing for me, though. Will you?"

"If I can."

"That money—the money for that stock. I want to leave it with you—to use or not to use as you think best. I've got a great deal of money—much more than is good for me."

Jeff shook his head.

"No, Rita, no. I can't do that. If I'm going to lose, I'll lose alone."

"But if you win?" she turned and gave him her hand. "You will. I've sworn you will. And here's luck on it." Instead of clasping her hand, as she intended he should, he raised it to his lips and kissed it gently—as under different conditions he might have kissed her lips. She looked down at the top of his head and closed her eyes a moment, but when he looked up she was smiling gaily.

"You're a good sport, Rita," he said.

"Yes," she said coolly, "I believe I am."

They rode into Mesa City slowly. The valley was already wrapped in shadow, but above them the upper half of Saguache Peak was afire with the sunset. The evening train was in and had puffed its way up to the yard. There was a crowd at the post-office waiting for mail, and scattered groups here and there were chatting with the arrivals. Wray and Mrs. Cheyne climbed the slope to the Kinney House, where a cowboy from the Home Ranch was waiting for their horses. They dismounted and went indoors to the office, where a solitary lady in a dark dress was signing her name to the hotel register. At the sound of their voices she turned and straightened, suddenly very pale and tense. And then, before Jeff could speak, turned again quickly to the clerk and said quietly:

"If you'll show me the way up at once, please, I'd like to go to my room."

CHAPTER XXII

PRIVATE MATTERS

Jeff followed Camilla's departing back with blank bewilderment, too amazed to utter a word. Rita Cheyne looked at Jeff's face and then laughed.

"Act Three will now begin," she said gaily. "It's really too good, Jeff. But it's time for the lady-villain to die. I'm off stage now, so good-by."

She gave him her hand, and he took it mechanically.

"I'll see you to-morrow," he said gravely.

"No, this is good-by. There isn't any to-morrow for us. I won't see you, Jeff. I think perhaps you won't want to see me now."

"This will make no difference," he stammered. "Don't you see—I've got to make her understand."

"You mean—my reputation. She'd never understand that. You'll be wasting time. Don't bother. I'm going to Denver in the morning. No, not a word——"

He tried to hold her, but the clerk came down at this moment, so, with a last flourish of the hand, she sped past him and up the stairs.

Jeff stood for a moment in the middle of the floor, irresolute. Then he turned to the desk and asked the number of Mrs. Wray's room.

"Parlor B, Mr. Wray, but she told me to say that she did not want to be disturbed."

Jeff hesitated, and then, with a frown: "That doesn't matter," he growled. "I'll explain. I'm going up," and he made his way to the stairs.

The room, he remembered, was at the front of the house. He had occupied it before they built his sleeping quarters in the office building. He found the door readily and knocked, but there was no response. He knocked again. This time her voice inquired.

"It's Jeff, Camilla," he said. "I must see you at once. Let me in, please."

Another long pause of indecision. He might have been mistaken, but he fancied he could hear Rita Cheyne's light laugh somewhere down the corridor. He did not want a scene—as yet his and Camilla's misfortunes had not reached the ears of Mesa City. He was still debating whether he would knock again or go away when the key turned in the lock and the door was opened.

"Come in," said Camilla, and he entered. She had removed her hat, and the bed and pillow already bore traces of her weight.

"I'm sorry to intrude," he began awkwardly.

"Shut the door," she suggested. "Perhaps it's just as well that people here shouldn't know any more of our private affairs than is necessary."

He obeyed and turned the key in the lock. His wife had moved to the window and stood, very straight and pale, waiting for him to speak. She seemed, if anything, slimmer than when he had seen her last, and her hair, which had fallen loosely about her shoulders, was burnished with the last warm glow from Saguache Peak. He had never thought her more beautiful, but there were lines at her eyes and mouth which the growing shadows of the room made deeper.

"I suppose you're willing to believe the worst of me," he began, "and of her. Perhaps I ought to tell you first that she only came here this morning—that she's going away to-morrow——"

"It isn't necessary to explain," she interrupted. "I hope Mrs. Cheyne won't go on my account. I'm going, too, in the morning. Under the circumstances, I'm sorry I couldn't have waited a day or two, but I had to see you at once."

"You had to see me? Has something gone wrong in New York? What is——?"

"Oh, no," wearily. "Everything in New York is all right. I've had everything packed in boxes and have given up the apartment at the hotel."

Jeff's brows tangled in mystification.

"You've given up the apartment? Why?"

"I'm not going to live there any more. I'm going to Kansas—to Abilene. I'm very tired, Jeff, and I need a rest."

"Camilla!" He pushed an armchair toward her and made her sit. "You do look as if you—you're not sick, are you?"

"Oh, no—just tired of everything." Her voice was low, as it always had been, but it had no life in it. "Just tired of being misunderstood. I won't explain, and I don't expect you to. I couldn't listen if you did. I came here because I had to come, because no matter what our relations are it was my duty to see you at once and tell you something of the greatest importance."

He stood behind her chair, his fingers close to her pallid cheeks, gently brushed by the filaments of her hair, the perfume of which reached him like some sweet memory. He leaned over her, aching for some token that would let him take her in his arms and forget all the shadows that had for so long hung about them. But as she spoke, he straightened, glowering at the wall beyond her.

"It isn't—it's nothing—to do with you—and Cort Bent——?"

"Oh, no, not at all. I haven't seen Cort for some time. It's about—about the General."

"General Bent?" Jeff gave a quick sigh, paced across the room, and then turned with a frown. "I'm not interested in General Bent," he muttered. "For me he has stopped being a person. He's only a piece of machinery—a steel octopus that's slowly crushing me to bits. I'd rather not talk of General Bent."

"Is it as bad as that?" she murmured, awe-stricken.

"Yes—they've pushed me to the wall. I'm still fighting, but unless I compromise or sell the mine——" he stopped and straightened his great frame. "Camilla, don't let's talk of this. I know you're tired. I won't stay long. Just tell me what you mean about going back to Abilene."

She clasped her hands nervously, glad of the chance to postpone her revelation, which seemed to grow more difficult with each moment.

"I can't stand the life I'm living, Jeff. I can't take any more from you. I've done it all spring because you wanted me to, but I can't live a lie any longer. Those rooms, that luxury, the servants, the people about me, they oppressed me and bore me to the earth. I have no right to them—still less now that things are going badly with you. You wanted me to keep the place we'd made—to make a larger place for your name in New York. I hope I've made it, but it has cost me something. I'm sick of ambition, of the soulless striving, the emptiness of it all. I can't do it any longer. I must go somewhere where I can be myself, where I don't have to knuckle to people I despise, where I don't have to climb, climb, climb—my ears deaf to the sneers and the envy of the scandal-mongers, and open only for the flattery which soothes my self-esteem but not—no, nothing can soothe the ache at the heart."

"What has happened, Camilla? I understood you had made many new friends."

"Yes, some new friends—also, some new enemies. But that hasn't bothered me. It's the lying I had to do—about you—the excuses I have had to make for being alone, the dates I have set for your return, lies—all lies—when I knew you were not going to return, that you had deserted me and left me only your money as a bribe. I couldn't do it any longer. I wrote you all this. You thought I didn't mean what I said—because I had your money—your merciless money, to gratify my pride in my pretty body. It has come to the point where your money is an insult—as much of an insult as the dishonor you put on me."

"Dishonor? I can't have you associate that name with Mrs. Cheyne," he blurted forth.

She smiled and then gave a hard, dry, little unmirthful laugh.

"Oh, you mistake my meaning. I wasn't thinking of Mrs. Cheyne. I was selfish enough to be still thinking of myself."

"I don't understand."

She got up and walked to the window, leaning her face against the pane to soothe with its coolness the heat of her brow. "I was thinking of my own dishonor—not yours—I have nothing to do with yours. To be doubted as you have doubted me—to know that you could believe me capable of dishonoring you—that is dishonor enough."

"You mustn't forget that you gave me cause," he said hoarsely. "What kind of a man do you think I am? You married me for a whim—because another man wouldn't have you. I forgave you that because I was willing to take you at any price. That was my fault as much as yours. It was what came after——"

He came up behind her, his voice trembling but suppressed.

"Do you think I'm the kind of man to tolerate the things between you and Cort Bent? I was a fool once. I believed in you—I thought no matter how little love you had in your heart for me that you'd have enough respect for yourself. Do you think I could stand knowing that my servants had seen you in his arms?"

She flashed around at him, breathless, paler than ever, clutching at the window-sill behind her for support. "Who—who told you this?"

"Greer—my valet at the hotel," he snarled, "when I discharged him and came here."

"He said——?"

Jeff caught her by the elbows—brutally—and held her so that he could look into her eyes.

"It's true—isn't it? Answer me!"

She gazed at him wide-eyed, and now for the first time he saw how ill she looked. Even at that moment he was sure that pity and love and a desire for possession were still the feelings that dominated him. She could not stand the gaze of his eyes. They seemed to burn through her, so she lowered her head.

"Yes," she admitted brokenly, "it's true—I was in his arms."

A sound came from his throat—a guttural sound half-choked in the utterance, as he dropped her, turned violently and in a stride was at the door. But as the key turned in the lock, she started forward and clutched him by the sleeve.

"Wait," she whispered piteously. "You must. You can't go now. You've got to know everything."

"I think I've had enough. I'm going." He turned the knob and opened the door, but she leaned against it and pushed it shut.

"You've got to listen. I have some rights still—the right every woman has to defend her name."

"If she can," he sneered.

"I can—I will. Will you listen?" He shrugged his shoulders and walked past her to the window. Camilla faced him, beginning slowly, breathlessly. "It was when we first came to New York that it began—that day when you and your—you and General Bent came in from downtown. Cortland was there—I—I thought I had forgotten him. I was happy with you. I was beginning to believe that, after all, we hadn't made a mistake. But you were away all day and I was lonely. The city was so vast, so unfriendly. I had no right to be lonely but I was. I was bewildered by all the magnificence and homesick for Mesa City. That day Cort Bent came in I had a fit of the blues. He brought back all the old story—and told me how you stole the mine."

Jeff laughed aloud. "So he told you that—did he? For sympathy?" he sneered.

"It revolted me," she persisted. "It revolts me still. I was new to modern business methods then. I can't like them now, but I've learned to keep silent. He asked me to forgive him the past, and I did. The spell of romance was over me still. He told me that he loved me more than ever and that he would not give me up. I thought—I thought I loved him, too——"

"You thought! You knew!" he said immoderately. "You've always loved him."

"No, no. It wasn't that," she pleaded. "It wasn't love, Jeff. I learned that soon enough. It was only pity——"

"And where was your pity for me?"

"Don't, Jeff—let me finish. Whatever my feelings for you then, whatever they are now, I was true to you in word and deed."

"When you were in his arms?" He laughed harshly.

"He took me in his arms. He tried to kiss me on the lips, but I would not let him. I've never let him. I broke away and threatened to ring if he followed me—and then—and then you came in. That's all, Jeff—all—and it's the truth." She faced him bravely, her eyes seeking his. He glared at her madly, but could not stare her down. It was one of those tragic moments when all the future hangs on the flicker of an eyelash. Jeff's gaze fell first.

"I would have come back here," she went on. "I asked you to leave New York with me. You wouldn't go. Instead of that you threw us together more and more. Why, I don't know, unless it was because you did not care."

"I did care," he muttered.

"You did not care," she insisted. "You had met Rita Cheyne then——"

"It was because she saw what I did," he asserted. "It was because——"

"Don't explain," she said. "I'm not asking you to explain or to exonerate her. It's too late for that. But I cannot bear to have you think such dreadful things about me, cruel things, things that hurt—hurt me here——"

She put her hand to her breast and swayed. He sprang to her side and caught her in his arms as she fell, lifting her like a child and carrying her to the bed, terror-stricken at the coldness of her hands and face. He rang the bell, and then with bungling fingers loosened her collar and dress, whimpering the while like a child. "Camilla, my girl, don't look so white. Open your eyes. I believe you, dearie; I've always believed you. Look at me, Camilla. I know you're straight. I didn't mean it. I was cruel to you. I wouldn't hurt you for the world. I love you. You're my girl—my girl."

There was a commotion at the door of the adjoining room, which suddenly flew open, and a figure in a trailing silk kimono glided in, pushed him aside abruptly, and put a silver brandy flask to Camilla's lips. It was Mrs. Cheyne.

"I was next door," she explained jerkily. "I heard. I couldn't help it. The partitions are so thin." And then, with sudden authority: "Don't stand there like a fool. Bring some water—quickly," and when he had obeyed: "Now bathe her temples and give her brandy. She'll be all right in a minute. When I go, get a light. But she mustn't see me here." And, before he was even aware of it, she had vanished like a wraith.

The housemaid brought a lamp, put it on the table, and hovered anxiously in the background, but Camilla's eyes had opened.

"Mrs. Wray is sick," Jeff began.

But Camilla had already drawn herself up on one elbow and gently pushed him away.

"I—I'm all right now. I can't imagine what made me feel so queerly. I've never been—I've never fainted before."

"A little more brandy?"

"No, not now. Who—? Wasn't there some one else in here? I thought—I saw some one in pink—and smelled a perfume. I must have been dreaming."

"Lie back on the pillow and rest, Camilla, dear. You're played out. The doctor will be here in a minute."

"I don't want a doctor. I'm all right." With an effort she straightened and sat on the side of the bed. "I remember—I was telling you——"

"Don't, Camilla. I don't want to hear. I believe you. It's all a mistake." He bent over her and tried to take her in his arms.

But she held up her hand and gently restrained him. "No—no," she said shaking her head. "Don't try to soothe me. That doesn't mean anything. I know. Shadows like these are not brushed away so quickly. Sit there, Jeff, by the window and listen. There's something else I must tell you—I should have told you at once. It's what I came here for, but I didn't seem to have the courage."

"No, not to-night."

"I must—it won't keep. You must listen." Her eyes pleaded, and so he sank into the rocking chair, leaning forward eagerly. She took up the handbag beside her on the table and fumbled tremblingly at the lock.

"It's something which concerns General Bent and you—no, not business, Jeff—something personal—something dreadfully personal—which has nothing whatever to do with your business relations, and yet something which seems to make your hatred of each other all the more terrible. It—it seems very hard for me to tell you, because it's something you have never liked to speak about—something that has always made you very unhappy."

"Why, what do you mean, Camilla?" he asked.

"You must let me tell you in my own way, because it will be hard for you to realize. I must show you that there is no mistake—no chance of a mistake, Jeff. Two weeks ago at the hotel in New York I was reading the letters in the old tin box and looking at the photographs. They were in the drawer of your desk. I've never spoken of them to you or looked at them since we were married—but you were not there to see them and—I—I didn't think you'd mind. I had them on your desk when Mrs. Rumsen came in. She saw the photograph of your father. She—she had one just like it in her album at home——"

"She knew him, then?" eagerly.

"Yes. I've brought both photographs with me." She took them out of the handbag with trembling hands and gave them to him.

He got up, took them to the light and held them side by side. "Yes, yes," he muttered, "they are the same—the very same. There's no doubt about that." And then, in a suppressed voice, "You know who he is?"

"Yes, Jeff. Mrs. Rumsen and I know—no one else—not a soul else. It's your secret. We couldn't tell. No one can or will but you." Her voice had sunk almost to a whisper. "It's—it's the General—Jeff—General Bent."

Outwardly Jeff gave no sign of unusual disturbance—a slight tightening of his thumbs upon the pictures, a slight bending of the head that his eyes might be surer of their vision. But to Camilla, who was watching him timidly, he seemed to grow compact, his big frame to shrink into itself and his eyes to glow with a strange, unfamiliar fire.

"General—Bent—General—Bent," he repeated the words huskily, as if they were a formula which he was trying to commit to memory. "It can't be true?"

"Yes, Jeff, it's true. Mrs. Rumsen identified the letters. There's no doubt—none."

"I can't believe—why, I'd have felt it—Camilla. I've always said I'd know him if I saw him."

"You didn't—but have you thought? You look like him, Jeff. You look like him."

"Yes—it's strange I didn't think of that." And then suddenly, "Does he know?"

"No—he won't unless you tell him."

He looked up at her with dumb, uncomprehending eyes and sank in his chair again, still grasping the photographs.

"I must think," he groaned, "I've got to think—what to do. I've hated him so—all these long years. I hate him now—not because he's my—my father—but because—he's himself."

"Stop, Jeff, you mustn't—you mustn't speak so."

"It's true," raising his bloodshot eyes to hers. "Why should I care? Did he care for the atom he's put into the world to float about without a name to land on any dung-hill? I'll pay him back for that, by God! I'm not his son. The only thing I want of his blood is his cruelty. I'll take that and use it when I can—on him and his."

"You mustn't, Jeff. It's horrible. I can't stand hearing this."

At the touch of her hand he stopped, got up and paced the length of the room and back again in grim silence, his lips working, while she watched him, fearful of another outburst.

"I must think this thing out, Camilla—by myself. I don't know what I'll do." And then suddenly, "Where is he now?" he asked harshly.

"In Denver—at the Brown Palace Hotel. They came West before I did with the Janneys, Gretchen, and Mrs. Rumsen. They came in a private car."

"To be in at my finish," he muttered bitterly. "I can't seem to think, Camilla. It's all so monstrous—it staggers me."

He stopped pacing the floor and looked at her, suddenly realizing how ill she had been, and contrite and self-accusing he fell on his knees at her feet and put his arms around her.

"Camilla! I shouldn't have let you tell me all this to-night. You were not strong enough. I've been brutal to you—to forget what you were suffering. You must sleep. My heart has been aching for you all these long months. I'll take care of you and make you strong and well again. You're not going back to Abilene, Camilla."

Slowly she disengaged her hands.

"You must go now, Jeff. I—I am tired. But all I need is rest. I couldn't have slept until I told you. It has preyed on me like a poison. I can't influence you, though. You must use your own judgment as to what you'll do, but I pray you'll do nothing rash."

"You must not go back to Abilene. There's much to be explained, Camilla—you must promise not to go away! I want to speak to you about Rita Cheyne."

She rose from her seat on the bed with a kind of wistful dignity.

"I can't promise anything, Jeff. Go, please. I want to be alone."

He looked at her a moment, pleading, and then turned without a word and went out. She heard his heavy steps go down the noisy hall, heard them again on the porch below and on the boardwalk through the village until they were engulfed in the gloom of the night—Jeff's night of anguish, battle, and temptation.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE INTRUDER

Meanwhile, in Parlor A, next door, a lady in a pink kimono, who seemed unusually diminutive and childish in her low-heeled bedroom slippers, pottered about uneasily, walking from window to window, jerking at the shades to peer out of doors, and then pulling the shades noisily down again; opening the hall door, looking down the corridor, walking out a few steps and then coming rapidly back again, to light a cigarette which she almost immediately put out and threw into the stove; coughing, dropping things—and then standing tense and alert to listen, acting altogether in a surprising and unusual manner. But the sound of voices in the adjoining room persevered, now loud—now less loud, but always perfectly audible through the thin, paper-like partition. At last, as though in sudden desperation, without removing her clothes, or even her slippers, she crawled quickly into the bed and pulled the covers and pillow over her head, lying still as a mouse, but tense and alert in spite of herself and—in spite of herself—listening. She emerged again in a while, half smothered, like a diver coming to the surface, listening again, and then with an exclamation quickly got out of bed, her fingers at her ears, to open the hall door presently and flee down the corridor.

From her vantage point—in an empty room—she heard Jeff's rapid footsteps go past, and only when she heard them no longer did she go back to Parlor A. She closed the outer door and locked it, sat down in an armchair, leaning forward, her head in her hands, staring at a pink rose in the ornate carpet, deep in thought. In the room next door all was quiet again. Once she thought she heard the sound of a sob, but she could not be sure of it, and after a while the light which had shone through the wide crack under the door disappeared. For a long time she sat there, immovable except for the slight, quick tapping of one small foot upon the floor.

At last she rose with an air of resolution and touched the bell. To the clerk, who answered it in person, she asked for telegraph blanks and a messenger. He looked at his watch.

"The telegraph office is closed."

"Well, it will have to be opened. This is a matter which can't wait until morning. The operator must be found."

"We might get a message through." He looked at the bill she had put in his hand. "Yes, I'm sure we can."

"And you might send me up some tea and toast." She shut the door, went to her trunk, took out her writing pad, put it on the table, turned up the wick of the lamp, and began writing. She finished a letter and sealed it carefully. When the telegraph blanks came she wrote two rather lengthy messages. One of the telegrams was addressed to the cashier of the Tenth National Bank of Denver—the other telegram and the letter were addressed to Lawrence Berkely at the Brown Palace Hotel in the same city. When she had given the messenger his instructions, she sank in her chair again with a sigh, and, with a tea cup in one hand and a piece of buttered toast in the other, sat facing the door into Parlor B. Her face wore a curious expression, partly mischievous, partly solemn, but there was at times a momentary trace of trouble in it, too, and when the tea cup was set aside she stretched her arms wearily and then brought them down, lacing her fingers behind her neck, putting her head back and closing her eyes as though in utter, soul-racking weariness. Suddenly she rose, passing the back of one wrist abruptly across her brows, and prepared to go to bed.

* * * * *

Camilla awoke late and ordered breakfast in her room. It was not bodily fatigue which she felt now. That seemed to have passed. It was mental inertia, which, like muscular stiffness, follows the carrying of too heavy a burden. A part of her burden she still carried, and even the brightness of the Colorado sun, which dappled the tinsel wall paper beside her, failed to rekindle the embers of old delights. From one of her windows she could see the fine sweep of the Saguache range as it extended its great half-moon toward the northern end of the valley, where it joined the main ridge of the Continental Divide; from the other window the roofs of the town below her, Mulrennan's, the schoolhouse, and Jeff's "Watch Us Grow" sign, now dwarfed by the brick office building which had risen behind it. It seemed a hundred years since she had lived in Mesa City, and to her eyes, accustomed to elegant distances, the town seemed to have grown suddenly smaller, more ugly, garish, and squalid. And yet it was here that she had lived for five years—five long years of youth and hope and boundless ambition. In those days the place had oppressed her with its emptiness, and she had suffered for the lack of opportunity to live her life in accordance with the dreams of her school-days; but to-day, when she seemed to have neither hope nor further ambition, she knew that the early days were days of real happiness. What did it matter if it had been the bliss of ignorance, since she was now aware of the folly of wisdom? She could never be happy anywhere now—not even here. She lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, but even then the vision of Rita Cheyne intruded—a vision of Jeff and Rita Cheyne riding together over the mountain trails.

She was indeed unpleasantly surprised when, a few moments later, there was a knock upon the door at the foot of her bed; and when she had put on a dressing gown the door opened suddenly, and there stood Rita Cheyne herself, smiling confidently and asking admittance.

Camilla was perturbed—so much so, in fact, that no words occurred to her. The door had opened outward toward Rita Cheyne, who held its knob. It was, therefore, obviously impossible for Camilla to close it without Mrs. Cheyne's assistance. This, it seemed, the visitor had no intention of giving, for she came forward on the door-sill and held out her hand.

"Mrs. Wray," she said gently, "I want to come in and talk to you. May I?"

"This is—rather surprising," Camilla began.

"Yes," she admitted, "it is. Perhaps I'm a little surprised, too. I—I wanted to talk to you. There are some things—important things——"

By this time Camilla had managed to collect her scattered resources. "I'm not sure," she said coolly, "that our friendship has ever been intimate enough to warrant——"

Rita put one hand up before her. "Don't, Mrs. Wray! It hasn't. But you'll understand in a moment, if you'll let me come in and talk to you."

Camilla drew her laces around her throat and with a shrug stood aside. "I hope you'll be brief," she said coldly. "Will you sit down?"

But Mrs. Cheyne had already sat in a chair with her back to one of the windows, where her face was partially obscured by the shadows of her hair. She pulled her kimono about her figure, clasped her fingers over her knees, and leaned forward, eagerly examining her companion, who had seated herself uneasily upon the side of the bed. "You are handsome!" she said candidly, as if settling a point in her own mind which had long been debatable. "I don't think I ever saw you handsomer than you are at the present moment. Trouble becomes you, it gives a meaning to the shadows of your face which they never had before."

Camilla started up angrily. "Did you come here to comment upon my appearance?"

"No," said Rita suavely. "I can't help it—that's all. Did you know that you have been the means of destroying one of my most treasured ideals? You have, you know. I've always scoffed at personal beauty—now I remain to pray. It's a definite living force—like politics—or like religion."

"Really, Mrs. Cheyne——!"

"Please let me talk—you would if you only knew what I'm going to say. My remarks may seem irrelevant, but they're not. They're a confession of weakness on my part—an acknowledgment of strength on yours. You never liked me from the first, and I don't think I really was very fond of you. We seemed to have been run in different moulds. There's no reason why we shouldn't have got along because—well, you know I'm not half bad when one really knows me; and you!—you have everything that most people like—you're beautiful, cultured, clever and—and quite human."

Camilla made a gesture of impatience, but Rita went on imperturbably. "You're handsome, gentle and human—but you—you're a dreadful fool!"

And then, with a laugh, "Please sit down and don't look so tragic. It's true, dear, perfectly true, and you'll be quite sure of it in a moment."

Anger seemed so futile, Camilla was reduced to a smile of contempt. "I'm sure I can't be anything but flattered at your opinions, Mrs. Cheyne." But, in spite of herself, she was conscious of a mild curiosity as to whither this remarkable conversation was leading.

"Thanks," said Rita with mock humility. "There's only one thing in the world more blind than hatred, and that's love. Because you think you hate me, you'd be willing to let slip forever your only chance of happiness in this world."

"I don't hate you," said Camilla icily, "and luckily my happiness is not in any way dependent on what you may say or do."

"Oh, yes, it is," said Rita quickly. "I'm going to prevent you from making a mistake. You've already made too many of them. You're planning to go away to Kansas when your husband positively adores the very ground you walk on."

Having shot her bolt, like the skillful archer she put her head on one side and eagerly watched its flight. Camilla started up, one hand on the bed-post, her color vanishing.

"You—you heard?"

"I—I know."

"He told you."

"Who? Jeff?" She leaned back in her chair and laughed up at the ceiling. "Well, hardly. I don't mind people telling me they adore the ground I walk on, but——"

"How did you know?" Camilla glanced toward the door and into Mrs. Cheyne's room, a new expression of dismay coming into her eyes. "You heard what passed in here—last night?"

"Yes—something—I couldn't help it."

"How could you—have listened?" Camilla gasped.

"I tried not to—I tried to make you stop—by dropping things and making a noise, but I couldn't. You didn't or wouldn't hear—either of you. Finally I had to go out of the room." She rose with a sudden impulse of sympathy and put her hand on Camilla's shoulder.

"Oh, don't think everything bad about me! Can't you understand? Won't you realize that at this moment I'm the best friend you have in the world? Even if you don't admit that, try to believe that what I say to you is true. Why should I risk a rebuff in coming in here to you if it wasn't with a motive more important than any hurt you can do to me? What I say to you is true. Your husband loves you. He's mad about you. Don't you understand?" Camilla lowered her eyes, one of her hands fingering at the bed-cover, suddenly aware of the friendly pat on her shoulder. At last she slowly raised her head and found Rita Cheyne's eyes with the searching, intrusive look that one woman has for another.

"Why should you tell me this?" she asked. Mrs. Cheyne turned aside with a light laugh.

"Why shouldn't I? Is happiness so easily to be had in this world that I'd refuse it—to a friend if it was in my power to give? I can't see you throwing it away for a foolish whim. That's what it is—a whim. You've got to stay with Jeff. What right have you to go? What has he done to deserve it? I flirted with him. I acknowledge it. What is that? I flirt with every man I like. It's my way of amusing myself." She straightened, and, with a whimsical smile which had in it a touch of effrontery, "The fact that he still loves you after that, my dear," she said, "is the surest proof of his devotion."

Camilla looked away—out of the window toward the "Watch Us Grow" sign, the symbol of Jeff's ambition, and her eyes softened. She got up and walked to the window which faced the mountains.

"If I could only believe you—if I only could," she said, and then, turning suddenly, "Why did you try to make Jeff fall in love with you?"

Rita shrugged. "Simply because—because it was impossible. I'm so tired of doing easy things. I've always done everything I wanted to, and it bored me. I owe your husband a debt. I thought all men were the same. Do you really think there are any more like Jeff?"

Camilla watched her narrowly, probing shrewdly below the surface for traces of the vein of feeling she had shown a moment before. What she discovered was little, but that little seemed to satisfy her, for, after a pause, in which she twisted the window cord and then untwisted it again, she came forward slowly, took Rita by both hands and looked deep into her eyes.

"Why did you come out here?"

It was no time for equivocation. Camilla's eyes burned steadily, oh, so steadily. But Rita did not flinch.

"I thought Jeff was lonely. I thought he needed some one, and so I came out in the Bents' private car as far as Denver. I left them there and came on alone. I wanted to help him—I'm trying to help him still—with my sympathy, my money—and—and such influence as I can use to make his wife realize her duty to him and her duty to herself."

It was an explanation which somehow did not seem to explain, and yet curiously enough it satisfied Camilla. If it was not the whole truth, there was enough of it that was nothing but the truth. She felt that it would not have been fair to ask for more. Rita was not slow to follow up this advantage. She gave a quick sigh, then took Camilla by both shoulders. "You mustn't go away to Kansas, I tell you. You've never loved anybody but Jeff. Cortland knows it, and I know it. I've known it all the while. A woman has a way of learning these things. If you leave him now there's no telling what may happen. He needs you. He can't get on without you. They're trying to crush the life out of him in this soulless war for the smelter, and they may succeed. He's pushed to the limit of his resourcefulness and his endurance. Flesh and blood can't stand that strain long. He needs all his friends now and every help, moral and physical, that they can give him. There's no one else who can take your place now. No one to stand at his side and take the bad with the good. You've had your half of his success—now you must take your half of his failure. You're his wife, Camilla! Do you understand that? His wife!"

A sob welled up in Camilla's throat and took her unawares. She bent her head to hide it—and then gave way and fell on the bed in a passion of tears.

Rita watched her for a moment with a smile, for she knew that the tears were tears of happiness, then went over and put her arms around Camilla's shoulders, murmuring gently:

"You're not to blame, Camilla—not altogether—and it's not too late to begin again. He needs you now as he has never needed you before. It's your opportunity. I hope you see it."

"I do, I do," came faintly from the coverlid.

"You must see him at once. Do you understand? Shall I send for him?"

"Yes, soon." Camilla sat up and smiled through her tears, drew Rita down alongside of her, put her arm around her and kissed her on the cheek.

"I understand you now. I'm sorry—for many things. I want to know you better, dear. May I?"

"Yes," said Rita calmly, "if you can. Perhaps then you might explain me to myself. But I'm going to New York again soon—something tells me you are to stay here."

"I will stay here now," said Camilla proudly, "if Jeff wants me. Are you sure—sure—he——"

Rita held her off at arm's length, quizzically—tantalizing her purposely.

"No, silly. He loves me, of course—that's why I'm presenting him to you." Then she leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek, and rose quickly.

"It's pretty late. I must catch the eleven o'clock train. I have a lot to do. I'm going into my own room."

There was a knock at the outer door. Camilla answered it and received a note from the clerk.

"From Mr. Wray's office. There's no answer."

She opened it hurriedly, while Rita watched.

"Dear Camilla" (it ran): "I'm leaving suddenly by the early train for Denver on a business matter which to me means either life or death. For the love of God don't leave me now. Wait until I return. I'm going to the Brown Palace Hotel and will write you from there.

"JEFF."

She read through the hurried scrawl twice and then silently handed it to her companion.

"You must follow, Camilla—at once—with me," said Mrs. Cheyne.

CHAPTER XXIV

GRETCHEN DECIDES

Lawrence Berkely was doing scout duty in the neighborhood of the seat of war, keeping closely in touch with Wray by wire code. Although he had a room at the Brown Palace Hotel, he went elsewhere for his meals, and since the arrival of General Bent's party he had eluded the detection of Cornelius Bent, Curtis Janney, or Cortland. He had been advised by a brief wire from Gretchen Janney of the date of her departure from New York and had noted the arrival of his business enemies with mingled feelings. In response to his note to her room Gretchen had stolen away and met him quietly in one of the hotel parlors, where, unknown to Curtis Janney, they had renewed their vows of eternal fidelity.

Gretchen was, of course, familiar with Larry's position as a business rival of her father's pet company, and she had thought it best, since Larry's departure from New York, to keep their engagement a secret from her parents. She had heard from him regularly, and distance, it seemed, had made no difference in the nature of her feelings for him, but she knew from her father's disappointment at Cortland Bent's defection that the time to take her parents into her confidence had not yet arrived.

It had not occurred to Curtis Janney to think of Lawrence Berkely's attentions seriously, but Gretchen knew that her mother, at least, had breathed a sigh of relief when Larry had left New York. Mrs. Janney had questioned her daughter anxiously, but Gretchen had answered in riddles, and in the end had succeeded in convincing her that marriage was the last thing in the world she was thinking of. Gretchen was a little afraid of her father. Once or twice he had expressed himself rather freely as to the kind of man he expected his daughter to marry, from which it was clear that his list of eligibles did not include Lawrence Berkely. She had written all of this tearfully to Larry, so that when she reached Denver he decided that matters had reached a crisis which demanded some sort of an understanding with Janney père. The clandestine meetings, which rather appealed to Gretchen's sense of the romantic, made Larry unhappy. He had nothing to be ashamed of and saw no reason why he had to court the woman he loved under cover of darkness. So he made up his mind to settle the thing in his own way.

In this crisis it had occurred to Gretchen to enlist Mrs. Cheyne's services in their behalf, for Rita had always been a favorite of her father's; but an evening or two after her arrival in Denver that lady had mysteriously disappeared from the hotel, only leaving word that she had gone to visit friends in the neighborhood and would advise General Bent of her future plans. No one but Larry, with whom she had been talking, had for a moment suspected that the "friends" in the neighborhood were only Jeff, and, though she had not bound Larry to secrecy, both duty and discretion demanded his silence.

Larry's position was difficult, but when he discovered that nothing was to be gained by keeping his movements hidden from Cornelius Bent he took the bull by the horns and boldly sent up his card to Curtis Janney's suite. He was so full of his own affairs that Mr. Janney's possible misconception of the object of his visit had not occurred to him. He was welcomed cordially—so jovially, in fact, that for a moment he was taken off his guard.

"Well, Berkely, by George! glad to see you. Rather a surprise to find us all out here invading your own country, eh?"

Larry sat rather soberly, refused a cigar, and expressed well-bred surprise.

"I can't imagine anybody wanting to leave Braebank in April," he said.

"Well, I didn't want to, Berkely—I'm doing a little scientific farming this summer—but we had to come out on this smelter business—the General and I——" He stopped and puffed rapidly at his cigar. "It's too bad—really—I'm sorry, sorry, but I think Wray made a mistake. I like Wray, Berkely. He's got stuff in him, but he overleaped himself in this smelter business. It's a pity he thought he had to fight us, but you've got to admit we gave him every chance."

"I didn't come to see you about the smelter business, Mr. Janney," said Berkely rather quietly, "but on a matter of my own—a personal—a private matter."

Janney's face grew grave.

"A private matter?"

"Yes, sir." Larry closed his lips firmly for a moment, and then came to the point without further words. "Mr. Janney, I suppose I should have spoken to you before I left New York. Our business relations seemed to make it difficult. But the very fact that we can't be friends in business makes it necessary for me, at least, to be honest with you in this other matter."

"What on earth are you driving at?"

"I want to marry your daughter, sir, that's all," said Larry with the suddenness of desperation.

"Gretchen? My daughter?" Janney said, explosively. He rose, with one hand on the back of his chair, and glared at Larry as though he doubted his sanity. "You want to marry Gretchen?" Then he laughed—and Larry discovered in that laugh wherein Janney and General Bent had points of contact. Janney took three long strides to the window, then wheeled suddenly. "You must be crazy. My daughter—marry you?"

Larry had risen and met Janney's impertinent scrutiny with some dignity.

"Yes, sir; I'm not aware of anything in my family, my connections, my prospects, or my character which can be found objectionable. Your daughter cares for me——"

"Why, you insolent young fortune-hunter!"

"Wait a moment!" and Larry's voice dominated. "You'll speak to me as one gentleman does to another—or you'll not speak to me at all." He took up his hat from the table, and then, more evenly, "I take it, you refuse your consent?"

By this time Curtis Janney's usual poise had completely deserted him.

"Refuse—my consent? Well, rather!"

He went to the door through which Berkely had entered. But instead of opening the door Janney turned and put his back to it.

"See here, young man, you don't like my language. Perhaps you'll like it less when I'm through talking. Colorado seems to breed big ambitions. I know nothing of your family and care less. But I do know something of your prospects. Inside of forty-eight hours you won't have prospects of any kind. You're going to be blotted out. Do you understand? I've made other plans for my daughter—and I'm not in the mood to listen to any silly romantic nonsense from her or any far-sighted propositions from you. Your proposal is impudent sir, d—d impudent—the proposition of a desperate man who, failing to win by fair means——"

"Will you open the door, sir?" said Larry, now white with rage. "If not, I'll find means to open it myself." He took a step forward, and the two men glared into each other's eyes not a pace apart. There was no mistaking Larry's determination, and Mr. Janney's surprise was manifest. This was not the manner of the fortune-hunters he had met. Somewhat uncertainly he stood aside, and Berkely put his hand on the door-knob.

"I did you an honor in consulting you, sir. It's a pity you couldn't appreciate it. In the future I'll act on my own initiative. Good afternoon."

And, before the older man had even realized what the words meant, Larry had opened the door and was gone. He hurried down the corridor, still trembling at the meaning of Janney's insults, which had touched his Southern pride. For Gretchen's sake it would have been better if he could have kept himself under control, and he realized that he had lost every chance of getting Curtis Janney's permission and approval. But that did not daunt him. He had acquitted his mind of a responsibility, and he was glad that in the future there could be no misunderstanding. If he could not marry Gretchen with the approval of her family, he would marry her without it.

Halfway up the block above the hotel on Seventeenth Street Larry stopped, able for the first time to review more calmly the incidents of the last half hour. What was it Curtis Janney had said about his prospects? In forty-eight hours he would be wiped off the earth. That meant Jeff, too. He had a sudden guilty sense of shock, that in his selfish absorption in his own affairs he had for the moment forgotten Jeff and the business of the Company. Forty-eight hours! That was important information—and Janney had let it slip in anger—there was no doubt about that. What did it mean? That all the Amalgamated Company's wires were laid, and the only thing left was to touch the button which would blow the Wray interests to pieces?

It looked that way, and yet Larry still hoped. The rails of the Saguache Short Line would be joined to those of the D. & C. to-morrow. Much depended on Symonds. Larry hurried over to the offices of the Denver and California and emerged later with a look of satisfaction. Symonds was still General Manager and was still loyal. Within thirty-six hours, at his orders, a locomotive and one passenger car from the D. & C. yards at Pueblo would carry Clinton, Symonds, Mulrennan, Judge Weigel, and other stockholders of the Development Company from Pueblo over the line to Saguache, establishing their connection at Pueblo in accordance with Jeff's agreements with the road. It would take some queer construction of the law for Jeff's enemies to get around that. Larry knew that it meant a long fight, one which lack of money might lose in the end, but he assured himself that he could establish a nice legal point which would be worth fighting for. The calling of Jeff's loans by the banks was a more dangerous matter. Larry had hoped that this could have been arranged, but only a small amount of the money had been forthcoming, and where Jeff was going to raise the rest of it Providence only knew!

When Larry reached his room at the hotel he found a brief note from Gretchen:

"I have heard about everything. I shall never speak to father again. You must marry me at once, Larry. I can't stand the suspense any longer. Mother is here with me, but I'm going to get away somehow. Meet me at the Shirley at ten o'clock."