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The Forbidden Way

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Title: The Forbidden Way

Creator: George Gibbs


        
Release date: January 6, 2015 [eBook #47899]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47899

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORBIDDEN WAY ***




Produced by Al Haines.





[Illustration: As she sat before her mirror...]




                                  *THE
                             FORBIDDEN WAY*


                                   BY

                              GEORGE GIBBS

                               AUTHOR OF
                         THE BOLTED DOOR, ETC.



                              ILLUSTRATED



                                NEW YORK
                            GROSSET & DUNLAP
                               PUBLISHERS




                          Copyright, 1911, BY
                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
     Copyright, 1911, by Associated Sunday Magazines, Incorporated.



                      _Published September, 1911_



                Printed in the United States of America




                               *CONTENTS*

CHAPTER

      I. Sharp Practice
     II. Camilla
    III. New York
     IV. The Forbidden Way
      V. Diners Out
     VI. Mrs. Cheyne
    VII. Braebank
   VIII. The Brush
     IX. The Shadow
      X. Triton of the Minnows
     XI. Discord
    XII. Tea Cups and Music
   XIII. Good Fishing
    XIV. Father and Son
     XV. Infatuation
    XVI. Old Dangers
   XVII. Old Rose Leaves
  XVIII. Combat
    XIX. The Lady in Gray
     XX. *La Femme Propose*
    XXI. *L'Homme Dispose*
   XXII. Private Matters
  XXIII. The Intruder
   XXIV. Gretchen Decides
    XXV. The Crisis
   XXVI. The Call of the Heart
  XXVII. General Bent
 XXVIII. Household Gods--and Goddesses




                          *THE FORBIDDEN WAY*



                              *CHAPTER I*

                            *SHARP PRACTICE*


The young man in the swivel chair drummed with his toes against the
desk, while he studied the gaudy fire insurance calendar on the wall
before him.  His pipe hung bowl downward from his lips, and the long
fingers of one hand toyed with a legal document in his lap.

"Something new is hatching in this incubator," he muttered at last,
dipping his pen in the ink bottle again.  "And I think--I _think_ it's
an ugly duckling.  Of course, it's no business of mine, but----"  He
looked up suddenly as a bulky figure darkened the doorway.  "Hello,
Jeff!"

Jeff Wray nodded and walked to the water cooler.

"Mulrennan's been here to see you three times," said the man in the
swivel chair.  "Each time he's been getting madder.  I wish you'd keep
your appointments or get another office-boy.  That man's vocabulary is a
work of genius.  Even you, in your happiest humors--why, what's the
matter with your face?"

Wray put his fingers up.  Four red streaks ran parallel across his cheek
bone.  He touched the marks with his hand, then looked at his finger
tips.

"Oh, that?  Seems like I must have butted into something."  He gave a
short, unmirthful laugh. "Don't make me look any prettier, does it?
Funny I didn't feel it before."  And then, as he turned to the inner
office, "Is Mulrennan coming back?" he asked.

"Yes, at five."

Wray glanced at the clock.  "Has Bent been in?"

"No."

"When will those papers be ready?"

"To-night, if you want them."

"Good!"  Wray turned, with his hand on the knob of the door.  "When Pete
comes, send him back.  Will you, Larry?"

Larry Berkely nodded, and Wray went into the back office and closed the
door behind him.  He took out his keys and unlocked the desk, but,
instead of sitting at once, he went over to a cracked mirror in the
corner and examined his face, grinning at his image and touching the red
marks with his fingers.

"That was a love-tap for fair," he said.  "I reckon I deserved it.  But
she oughtn't to push a man too far.  She was sure angry.  Won't speak
now for a while."  He turned with a confident air. "She'll come around,
though," he laughed.  "You just bet she will."  Then he sat down at his
desk, took a photograph in a brass frame out of the drawer, put it up
against the pen-rack before him, and, folding his arms across the
blotter, gazed at it steadily for a moment.

"It was a mean trick, wasn't it, Camilla girl?" he muttered, half aloud.
"I'm sorry.  But you've got to learn who you belong to.  There can't be
any fooling of other fellows around Jeff Wray's girl.  I just had to
kiss you--had to put my seal on you, Camilla.  I reckon you put yours on
me, too, black and blue."  He laughed ruefully.  "You'll forgive me,
though.  A diamond necklace or so will square _that_.  You bet it will!"

He put the picture down, hid it away, and took up some papers that lay
before him.  But when, a while later, Larry Berkely showed Mulrennan in,
they found him sitting with his face to the window, looking out with his
baby stare over the hundred thousand acres of the Hermosa Company.

"Come in, Pete, and shut the door.  You don't mind, Larry?  Mulrennan
and I have got some private business."  Then, when the door was closed,
he said in a half-whisper, "Well?  What did you find out about the 'Lone
Tree'?"

Mr. Mulrennan carefully sought the cuspidor, then wiped his brow with a
dirty red handkerchief. "What didn't I find out?  God, Jeff! that mine's
lousy with sylvanite.  The watchman was asleep, and we got in
scrumpshus-like.  It's half way down that short winze they made last
fall.  Max had put some timbers up to hide it, and we pulled 'em down.
We only had matches to strike and couldn't see much, but what we saw was
a-plenty. It's the vein, all right.  Holy Mother! but it started my
mouth to watherin'--I haven't had a wink of shlape.  Where in h--l have
you been all day?"

"Business," said Jeff vaguely, "in the mountains."

"It's no time to be potherin' about wid little matthers."  Mulrennan
brought his huge fist down on the table.  "You've got to nail this deal,
Jeff, to-day."

"To-day?  Bent hasn't been back."

"Well, you've got to find him--now."

"What for?  See here, Pete, cool down.  Can't you see if I go after him
he'll get suspicious--and then good-bye to everything.  You leave this
deal to me.  He'll sign.  Larry's drawing the lease and bond now.  Maybe
to-morrow----"

"To-morrow?  To-morrow will be too late.  That's what I'm gettin' at.
Max is ugly----"

Wray clenched his bony fingers over the chair arm and leaned across the
desk.

"Max!" he whispered angrily.  "What----?"

"He's afther more money.  He talked pretty big last night, but this
mornin'----"  He broke off breathlessly.  "Oh, I've had the h--l of a
day----"

"What did he say?"

"He's talkin' of goin' to the mine owner.  He says, after all, Cort Bent
never harmed him any, and it's only a matter of who gives him the most."

Wray got to his feet and took two or three rapid turns up and down the
room.

"D--n him!" he muttered.  And then suddenly, "Where is he now?"

"Up the bar playing pinochle with Fritz."

"Are you sure?"

"He was twenty minutes ago.  I haven't left him a minute except to come
here.  Fritz is losin' money to him.  I told him to.  That will kape him
for a while."

But Wray had already taken up his hat.  "Come, let's go up there.  We've
got to shut his mouth some way," he said, through set lips.

"I've been promisin' myself sick, but he's a sharp one--God!  But I wish
them papers was signed," sighed Mulrennan.

As they passed through the office Jeff stopped a moment.

"If Bent comes in, Larry, tell him I'll be back in half an hour.
Understand?  Don't seem anxious. Just tell him I'm going to Denver and
want to settle that deal one way or another as soon as possible."

Berkely nodded and watched the strange pair as they made their way up
the street.  Wray, his head down and hands in his pockets, and the
Irishman using his arms in violent gestures.

"I'm _sure_ it's an ugly duckling," commented the sage.

                     *      *      *      *      *

It was three years now since Berkely had come to Colorado for his
health, and two since Fate had sent him drifting down to Mesa City and
Jeff Wray. Mesa City was a "boom" town.  Three years ago, when the "Jack
Pot" mine was opened, it had become the sudden proud possessor of five
hotels (and saloons), three "general" stores, four barber shops, three
pool rooms, a livery stable, and post office. Its main (and only) street
was a quarter of a mile in length, and the plains for a half mile in
every direction had been dotted with the camps of the settlers.  It had
almost seemed as if Saguache County had found another Cripple Creek.

A time passed, and then Mesa City awoke one morning to find that the
gamblers, the speculators, and the sporting men (and women) had gone
forth to other fields, and left it to its fate, and the town knew that
it was a failure.

But Jeff Wray stayed on.  And when Berkely came, he stayed, too, partly
because the place seemed to improve his health, but more largely on
account of Jeff Wray.  What was it that had drawn him so compellingly
toward the man?  He liked him--why, he could not say--but he did--and
that was the end of it.  There was a directness in the way Wray went
after what he wanted which approached nothing Berkely could think of so
much as the unhesitating self-sufficiency of a child.  He seemed to have
an intuition for the right thing, and, though he often did the wrong
one, Berkely was aware that he did it open-eyed and that no book wisdom
or refinement would have made the slightest difference in the
consummation of his plans.  Berkely was sure, as Wray was sure, that the
only reason Jeff hadn't succeeded was because opportunity hadn't yet
come knocking at his door.  He liked Wray because he was bold and
strong, because he looked him in the eye, because he gave a sense of
large areas, because his impulses, bad as well as good, were generous
and big, like the mountains and plains of which he was a part.  His
schemes showed flashes of genius, but neither of them had money enough
to put them into practice.  He was always figuring in hundreds of
thousands or even in millions, and at times it seemed to Berkely as
though he was frittering his life away over small problems when he might
have been mastering big ones.  At others he seemed very like Mulberry
Sellers, Munchausen, and D'Artagnan all rolled into one.

What was happening now, Berkely could not determine, so he gave up the
problem and, when his work was done, filled his pipe, strolled to the
door, and watched the changing colors on the mountains to the east of
him, as the sun, sinking lower, found some clouds and sent their shadows
scurrying along the range to the southward.  With his eye he followed
the line of the trail up the canon, and far up above the cottonwoods
that skirted the town he could see two figures on horseback coming down.
He recognized them at once, even at that distance, for they were a sight
to which Mesa City had become accustomed.

"Camilla and Bent," he muttered.  "I'm glad Jeff's not here.  It's been
getting on his nerves. I hope if Bent sells out he'll hunt a new field.
There are too few women around here--too few like Camilla.  I wonder if
she really cares.  I wonder----"

He stopped, his eyes contracted to pin points. The pair on the horses
had halted, and the man had drawn close to his companion, leaning
forward. Was he fixing her saddle?  An unconscious exclamation came from
Berkely's lips.

"He's got his nerve--right in plain view of the town, too.  What----?"

The girl's horse suddenly drew ahead and came galloping down through the
scrub-oak, the man following.  Berkely smiled.  "The race isn't always
to the swift, Cort Bent," he muttered.

At the head of the street he saw Miss Irwin's horse turn in at the
livery stable where she kept him, but Cortland Bent's came straight on
at an easy canter and halted at Berkely's door.

"Is Wray there?" asked Bent.

"No, but he told me to ask you to wait.  Won't you come in?"

"Just tell him I'll be in in the morning."

"Jeff may go to Denver to-morrow," said Larry, "but of course there's no
hurry----"

Bent took out a silver cigarette case and offered it to Berkely.  "See
here, Larry," he said, "what the devil do you fellows want with the
'Lone Tree'? Are you going to work it, or are you getting it for some
one else?  Of course, it's none of my business--but I'd like to know,
just----"

"Oh, I'm not in this.  This is Jeff's deal.  I don't know much about it,
but I think he'd probably work it for a while."

Together they walked into the office, and Berkely spread some papers out
over the desk.  "Jeff told me to draw these up.  I think you'll find
everything properly stated."

Bent nodded.  "Humph!  He feels pretty certain I'll sign, doesn't he?"

Berkely stood beside him, smoking and leaning over his shoulder, but
didn't reply.

Bent laughed.  "Well, it's all cut and dried. Seems a pity to have put
_you_ to so much trouble, Larry.  I haven't made up my mind.  They say
twice as much money goes into gold mines as ever comes out of 'em.  I
guess it's true. If it wasn't for Jeff Wray in this deal I'd sign that
paper in a minute.  But I've always had an idea that some day he'd make
his pile, and I don't relish the idea of his making it on me. He's a
visionary--a fanatic on the gold in these mountains, but fortune has a
way of favoring the fool----"

"Sounds as though you might be talking about me," said a voice from the
doorway, where Jeff stood smiling, his broad figure completely blocking
the entrance.

Bent turned, confused, but recovered himself with a short laugh.  "Yes,
I was," he replied slowly. "I've put twenty thousand dollars in that
hole in the rocks, and I hate to leave it."

Jeff Wray wiped his brow, went to the cooler, drew a glass of water, and
slowly drank it.

"Well, my friend," he said carelessly between swallows, "there's still
time to back down.  You're not committed to anything.  Neither am I.
Suit yourself.  I'm going to get a mine or so.  But I'm not particular
which one.  The 'Daisy' looks good to me, but they want too much for it.
The terms on your mine, the 'Lone Tree,' just about suited me--that's
all.  It's not a 'big' proposition. It might pan thirty or forty to the
ton, but there's not much in that--not away up there.  Take my offer--or
leave it, Bent.  I don't give a d--n."

He tossed his hat on the chair, took off his coat, and opened the door
of the back office.

"Larry," he added, "you needn't bother to stay, I've got some writing to
do.  I'll lock up when I go."

If Mr. Mulrennan had been present he would have lost his senses in sheer
admiration or sheer dismay.  Berkely remembered that "bluff" later, when
he learned how much had depended on its success.

But it worked beautifully.

"Oh, well," said Bent peevishly, "let's get it over.  I'll sign.  Are
you ready to make a settlement?"




                              *CHAPTER II*

                               *CAMILLA*


Her pupils had all been dismissed for the day and the schoolmistress sat
at her desk, a half-written letter before her, gazing out through the
open doorway over the squalid roofs of the "residence section" of Mesa
City.  The "Watch Us Grow" sign on the false front over Jeff Wray's
office was just visible over the flat roof of the brick bank building.
"Watch Us Grow!"  The shadow in her eyes deepened.  For two long years
she had seen that sign from doorway and window of the school, and, even
when she went home to Mrs. Brennan's bungalow up above, she must see it
again from the veranda.  Jeff's business card was the most prominent
object in town, except perhaps Jeff himself.  It was so much larger than
it had any right to be, out of scale, so vulgar, so insistent, so--so
like Jeff.  Jeff had stood in the doorway of the schoolhouse while they
were building his office, and, in his masterful way, had told her of the
trade-mark he had adopted for his business; he wanted it in plain sight
of her desk so that she could see it every day and watch Mesa City (and
himself) fulfil the prophecy.

That seemed ages ago now.  It was before the "Jeff Wray" had been
painted out and "Wray and Berkely" put in its place, before Larry came
out, or Cortland Bent, in the days when Jeff was a new kind of animal to
her, when she had arrived fresh from her boarding school in Kansas.
"Watch Us Grow!"  How could any one grow in a place like this--grow
anything, at least, but wrinkled and stale and ugly.  The sign had been
a continual mockery to her, a travesty on the deeper possibilities of
life which Fate had so far denied her.  She shut her eyes and resolutely
turned her head away, but she could not get Jeff Wray out of her mind.
She was thoroughly frightened.  His air of proprietorship so suddenly
assumed yesterday and the brutality of his kiss had brought her own
feelings to a crisis--for she had learned in that moment that their
relationship was impossible.  But her fingers tingled still--at the
memory of the blow she had given him.  She _had_ promised to marry him
when he "made good."  But in Mesa City that had seemed like no promise
at all.  How could any one succeed in anything here?

She leaned forward on the desk and buried her face in her hands.  What
chance had she?  Where was the fairy prince who would rescue her from
her hut and broth kettle?

She raised her head at the sound of a voice and saw Cortland Bent's
broad shoulders at the open window.

"Morning!" he said, cheerfully.  "You look like Ariadne deserted.  May I
come in?"

She nodded assent, and, thrusting her school books and unfinished letter
in the desk, turned the key viciously in its lock.

"Aren't you riding to-day?" he asked from the doorway.

"No."

He came forward, sat on the top of one of the small desks facing her,
and examined her at his ease.

"You're peevish--no?  What?"

"Yes.  I'm in a frightful mood.  You'd better not stay."

He only laughed up at the sunflower dangling from the water pitcher.
"Oh, I don't mind.  I've a heavenly disposition."

"How do you show it?" she broke in impetuously. "Every man thinks the
one way to get on with a woman is to make love to her----"

"No--not altogether," he reproached her.  "You and I have had other
topics, you know--Swinburne and Shakespeare and the musical glasses."

"Oh, yes, but you always drifted back again."

"How can you blame me?  If I've made love to you, it was----"

"Oh, I know.  I'm a rustic, and it's a good game."

"You're the least rustic person I've ever known," he said seriously.
"It's not a game.  I can't think of it as a game.  It is something more
serious than that."  He took a few paces up and down the aisle before
her and then went on.

"I know you've never been willing to give me credit for anything I've
said when I've tried to show you how much you were to me--and yet, I
think you cared--you've showed it sometimes.  But I've tried to go about
my work and forget you, because I thought it was best for us both.  But
I can't, Camilla, I tell you I can't get you out of my head.  I think of
something else, and then, in a moment, there you are again--elusive,
mocking, scornful, tender, all in a breath.  And then, when I find
you're there to stay, I don't try any more. I don't want to think of
anything else."  He leaned across the desk and seized one of her hands
with an ardor which took her by storm.  "You've got into my blood like
wine, Camilla.  To be near you means to reach forward and take you--the
sound of your voice, the response of your eyes, the appeal of your mind
to mine in this wilderness of spirit--I can't deny them--I don't want to
deny them."

Her head sank, but she withdrew her hands. "And my sanity?" she asked
clearly.  "That does not appeal to you."

"Perhaps it does--most of all.  It maddens me, too--that I can't make
you care for me enough to forget yourself."

She looked up at him, smiling gently now.  "It is easy to say forget
myself, that _you_ may have one more frail woman to remember.  Am I so
provincial, Cortland Bent?  Am I really so rustic?  Two days ago you
were telling me I had all the _savoir faire_ of the great lady."

He did not reply to that, but, while she watched him, he got up and
walked slowly over to the map of the United States which hung between
the windows.

"I don't suppose it will mean anything to you when I tell you I'm
going," he said bitterly.

"Going--where?"

"East."

"For long?"

"For good.  I've leased the mine."

She started up from her chair, breathless, and stood poised on the edge
of the platform, the slender fingers of one hand grasping the projecting
edge of the desk.

"You're--going--East to--to stay?"

He did not turn, and, if he noticed any change in her intonation, he
gave no sign of it.

"I've finished here.  The mine is leased.  I'm going back to New York."

"I can't believe--you never told me.  It's curious you shouldn't have
said something before."

"Why should I?  No man likes to admit that he's a failure."

"You've leased the 'Lone Tree'?  To whom?"

"To Wray.  He made me a proposition yesterday. I've accepted it.  In
fact, I'm out of the thing altogether."

"Jeff?  I don't understand.  Why, only yesterday he----"

Was it loyalty to Jeff that made her pause?  He turned quickly.

"What--did he say anything?"

"Oh, nothing--only that the mine was a failure. That seems curious if he
had decided to lease it."

"Oh!" he said smiling, "it's only Wray's way of doing business.  When
anything is hanging fire he always says exactly what he doesn't mean. He
doesn't worry me.  I've gone over that hole with a fine-tooth comb, and
I'm glad to get out of it."

"And out of Mesa City?"  Then, with an attempt at carelessness, "Of
course we'll all miss you," she said dully.

"Don't!  You mustn't speak to me in that way. I've always been pretty
decent to you.  You've never believed in me, but that's because you've
never believed in any man.  I've tried to show you how differently I
felt----"

"By kissing me?" she mocked scornfully.

Bent changed his tone.  "See here, Camilla," he said, "I'm not in a mood
to be trifled with.  I can't go away from here and leave you in this
God-forsaken hole.  There isn't a person here fit for you to associate
with.  It will drive you mad in another year.  Do you ever try to
picture what your future out here is going to be?"

"Haven't I?" bitterly.

"You've seen them out on the ranches, haven't you?  Slabsided, gingham
scarecrows in sunbonnets, brown and wrinkled like dried peaches, moving
all day from kitchen to bedroom, from bedroom to barn, and back
again----"

"Yes, yes," said Camilla, her head in her hands. "I've seen them."

"Without one thought in life but the successes of their husbands--the
hay crop, the price of cattle; without other diversion than the visit to
Kinney, the new hat and frock once a year (a year behind the fashion);
their only companions women like themselves, with the same tastes, the
same thoughts, the same habits----"

"O God!" whispered the girl, laying a restraining hand on his arm,
"don't go on!  I can't stand it."

He clasped her hands in both of his own.

"Don't you see it's impossible?" he whispered. "You weren't made for
that kind of thing.  Your bloom would fade like theirs, only sooner
because of your fineness.  You'd never grow like those women, because it
isn't in you to be ugly.  But you'd fade early."

"Yes," she said, "I know it."

"You can't stay.  I know, just as you know, that you were never meant
for a life like that--you weren't meant for a life like this.  Do you
care what becomes of these kids?  No matter how much chance you give
them to get up in the world, they'll seek their own level in the end."

"No, I can't stay here."  She repeated the phrase mechanically, her gaze
afar.

"I've watched you, Camilla.  I know.  For all your warm blood, you're no
hardy plant to be nourished in a soil like this.  You need environment,
culture, the sun of flattery, of wealth--without them you'll wither----"

"And die.  Yes, I will.  I could not stand this much longer.  Perhaps it
would be better to die than to become the dull, sodden things these
women are."

"Listen, Camilla," he said madly.  He put his arms around her, his
pulses leaping at the contact of her body.  Her figure drooped away from
him, but he felt the pressure of her warm fingers in his, and saw the
veins throbbing at her throat and temples, and he knew that at last she
was awakened. "You must come with me to the East.  I won't go without
you.  I want you.  I want to see you among people of your own sort.
I'll be good to you--so gentle, so kind that you'll soon forget that
there ever was such a place as this."

His tenderness overpowered her, and she felt herself yielding to the
warmth of his entreaty.  "Do you really need me so much?" she asked
brokenly.

His reply was to draw her closer to him and to raise her lips to his.
But she turned her head and would not let him kiss her.  Perhaps through
her mind passed the memory of that other kiss only yesterday.

"No, I'm afraid."

"Of me?  Why?"

"Of myself.  Life is so terrible--so full of meaning.  I'm afraid--yes,
afraid of you, too. Somewhere deep in me I have a conscience.  To-day
you appeal to me.  You have put things so clearly--things I have thought
but have never dared speak of.  To-day you seem to be the only solution
of my troubles----"

"Let me solve them then."

"Wait.  To-day you almost seem to be the only man in the world--almost,
but not quite.  I'm not sure of you--nor sure of myself.  You point a
way to freedom from this--perhaps a worse slavery would await me there.
Suppose I married you----"

"Don't marry me then," he broke in wildly. "What is marriage?  A word
for a social obligation which no one denies.  But why insist on it?  The
real obligation is a moral one and needs no rites to make it binding.  I
love you.  What does it matter whether----"

His meaning dawned on her slowly, and she turned in his arms, her eyes
widening with bewilderment as she looked as though fascinated by the
horror she read in his words.  He felt her body straighten in his arms
and saw that the blood had gone from her face.

"Do I startle you?  Don't look so strangely. You are the only woman in
the world.  I am mad about you.  You know that?  Can't you see?  Look up
at me, Camilla.  There's a girl in the East they want me to marry--of an
old line with money--but I swear I'll never marry her.  Never!"

Slowly she disengaged his arms and put the chair between them.  There
was even a smile on her lips. "You mean--that I--that you----"  She
paused, uncertain of her words.

"That I'll stick to you until Kingdom Come," he assented.

Her laugh echoed harshly in the bare room. "Whether you marry the other
girl or not?"

"I'll never marry the other girl," he said savagely, "never see her
again if you say so----"

He took a step toward her, but she held up her hand as though warding
off a blow.

"One moment," she said, a calm taking the place of her forced gayety,
her voice ringing with a deep note of scorn.  "I didn't understand at
first. Back here in the valley we're a little dull.  We learn to speak
well or ill as we think.  At least, we learn to be honest with
ourselves, and we try to be honest with others.  We do not speak fair
words and lie in our hearts.  Our men have a rougher bark than yours,
but they're sound and strong inside."  She drew herself to her full
height.  "A woman is safe in this country--with the men of this country,
Mr. Bent.  It is only when----"

"Camilla!  Forgive me.  I was only trying you. I will do whatever you
say--I----"

She walked to the door rapidly, then paused uncertainly, leaning against
the door-jamb and looking down the street.

"Will you go?" she murmured.

"I can't--not yet."

"You must--at once.  Jeff Wray is coming here--now!"

"What have I to do with him?"

"Nothing--only if he guesses what you've been saying to me, I won't
answer for him.  That's all."

Bent looked up with a quick smile, and then sat on the nearest desk.  "I
suppose I ought to be frightened.  What?  Jeff is a kind of a 'bad man,'
isn't he?  But I can't go now, Camilla.  Wouldn't be the sporting thing,
you know.  I think I'll stay. Do you mind if I smoke?"

She watched the approaching figure of Jeff for a moment irresolutely and
then turned indoors. "Of course, I can't _make_ you go," she said, "but
I have always understood that when a woman expressed a wish to be alone,
it was the custom of gentlemen----"

"You made my going impossible," he said coolly. "Don't forget that.
I'll go after a while, but I won't run.  You've got something to tell
Jeff Wray.  I prefer to be here when you do it."

"I didn't say I'd tell him," she put in quickly. "I'm not going to tell
him.  Now will you go?"

"No."

He sat on a desk, swinging one long leg to and fro and looking out of
the open door, at which the figure of Jeff presently appeared.  The
newcomer took off his hat and shuffled in uneasily, but his wide stare
and a nod to Bent showed neither surprise nor ill-humor.  Indeed, his
expression gave every sign of unusual content.  He spoke to Bent, then
gazed dubiously toward the teacher's desk, where Camilla, apparently
absorbed in her letter, looked up with a fine air of abstraction,
nodded, and then went on with her writing.

"Looks sort of coolish around here," said Jeff. "Hope I haven't butted
into an Experience Meeting or anything."  He laughed, but Bent only
examined the ash of his cigarette and smiled.  "I thought, Camilla," he
went on, "maybe you'd like to take a ride----"

Miss Irwin looked up.  She knew every modulation of Jeff's voice.  His
tone was quiet--as it had been yesterday--but in it was the same note of
command--or was it triumph?  She glanced at Cortland Bent.

"I'm not riding to-day," she said quietly.

"Not with Bent, either?  That's funny.  What will people think around
here?  We've sort of got used to the idea of seeing you two out
together--kind of part of the afternoon scenery, so to speak. Nothing
wrong, is there?"

Bent flushed with anger, and Camilla marveled at this new manifestation
of Jeff's instinct.  It almost seemed as though he knew what had
happened between them as well as though she had told him.  Jeff laughed
softly and looked from one to the other with his mildest stare, as
though delighted at the discovery.

Miss Irwin rose and put her letter in the drawer of the desk.  "I wish
you'd go--both of you," she said quietly.  But Wray had made himself
comfortable in a chair and showed no disposition to move.

"I thought you might like to ride out to the 'Lone Tree,'" he said.
"You know Mr. Bent has leased it to me?"

"Yes, he told me."

"What else did he tell you?"

"Oh, I say, Wray," Bent broke in, "I don't see how that can be any
affair of yours."

Jeff Wray wrapped his quirt around one knee and smiled indulgently.
"Doesn't seem so, does it, Bent?" he said coolly.  "But it really is.
You see, Camilla--Miss Irwin--and I have been friends a long time--as a
matter of fact, we're sort of engaged----"

"Jeff!" gasped the girl.  The calmness of his effrontery almost, if not
quite, deprived her of speech.  "Even if it were true, you must see that
it can hardly interest----"

"I thought that he might like to know.  I haven't interfered much
between you two, but I've been thinking about you some.  I thought it
might be just as well that Mr. Bent understood before he went away."

Camilla started up, stammered, began to speak, then sank in her chair
again.  Bent looked coolly from one to the other.

"There seems to be a slight difference of opinion," he said.

"Oh, we're engaged all right," Jeff went on. "That's why I thought I'd
better tell you it wouldn't be any use for you to try to persuade
Camilla--that is, Miss Irwin--to go to New York with you."

Jeff made this surprising statement with the same ease with which he
might have dissuaded a client in an unprofitable deal.  Miss Irwin
became a shade paler, Bent a shade darker.  Such intuition was rather
too precise to be pleasant.  Neither of them replied.  Bent, because he
feared to trust himself to speak--Camilla, because her tongue refused
obedience.

"Oh, I'm a pretty good guesser.  Camilla told you she wasn't going,
didn't she?  I thought so. You see, that wouldn't have done at all,
because I'd have had to go all the way East to bring her back again.
When we're married of course----"

"Jeff!"  The girl's voice, found at last, echoed so shrilly in the bare
room that even Wray was startled into silence.  He had not seemed aware
of any indelicacy in his revelation, but each moment added to the
bitterness of Miss Irwin's awakening.  Bent's indignity had made her
hate herself and despise the man who had offered it.  She thought she
saw what kind of wood had been hidden under his handsome veneer--she had
always known what Jeff was made of.  The fibre was there, tough, strong,
and ugly as ever, but it was not rotten.  And in that hour she learned a
new definition of chivalry.

"Jeff, will you be quiet?"  But she went over to him and put her hand on
his shoulder, and her words came slowly and very distinctly, as she
looked over Wray's head into Cortland Bent's eyes.  "What Mr. Wray says
is true.  I intend to marry him when he asks me to."

Bent bowed his head, as Jeff rose, the girl's hand in his.

"I reckon that about winds up all your loose ends around Mesa, don't it,
Bent?" said Jeff cheerfully.  "When are you leaving town?"

[Illustration: "'I reckon that about winds up all your loose ends around
Mesa,' said Jeff cheerfully."]

But Bent by this time had taken up his cap, and was gone.




                             *CHAPTER III*

                               *NEW YORK*


Wonderful things happened in the year which followed.  The "Lone Tree"
was a bonanza.  Every month added to the value of the discovery.  The
incredulous came, saw, and were conquered, and Mesa City was a "boom
town" again.  Jeff Wray hadn't a great deal to say in those days.  His
brain was working overtime upon the great interlocking scheme of
financial enterprises which was to make him one of the richest men in
the West.  He spoke little, but his face wore a smile that never came
off, and his baby-blue stare was more vacuous than ever.

And yet, as month followed month and the things happened which he had so
long predicted for himself and for the town, something of his old
arrogance slipped away from him.  If balked ambition and injured pride
had made him boast before, it was success that tamed him.  There was no
time to swagger.  Weighty problems gave him an air of seriousness which
lent him a dignity he had never possessed.  And if sometimes he
blustered now, people listened.  There was a difference.

As the time for her wedding approached, for the first time in her life
Camilla felt the personality of the man.  Why was it that she could not
love him? Since that hour at the schoolhouse when Cortland Bent had
shown her how near--and how fearful--could be the spiritual relation
between a woman and a man, life had taken a different meaning to her.

Jeff's was a curious courtship.  He made love to her bunglingly, and she
realized that his diffidence was the expression of a kind of rustic
humility which set her in a shrine at which he distantly worshipped. He
seemed most like the Jeff of other days when he was talking of himself,
and she allowed him to do this by the hour, listening, questioning, and
encouraging.  If this was to make the most of her life, perhaps it might
be as well to get used to the idea. She could not deny that she was
interested.  Jeff's schemes seemed like a page out of a fairy book, and,
whether she would or not, she went along with him.  There seemed no
limit to his invention, and there was little doubt in his mind, or,
indeed, in hers, that the world was to be made to provide very
generously for them both.

It was on the eve of their wedding day that Jeff first spoke of his
childhood.

"I suppose you know, Camilla, I never had a father.  That is," he
corrected, "not one to brag about.  My mother was a waitress in the
Frontier Hotel at Fort Dodge.  She died when I was born. That's my
family tree.  You knew it, I guess, but I thought maybe you'd like to
change your mind."

He looked away from her.  The words came slowly, and there was a note of
heaviness in his voice.  She realized how hard it was for him to speak
of these things, and put her hand confidently in his.

"Yes, I knew," she said softly.  "But I never weighed _that_ against
you, Jeff.  It only makes me prouder of what you have become."  And
then, after a pause, "Did you never hear anything about him?"

"There were some letters written before I was born.  I'll show them to
you some day.  He was from New York, that's all I know.  Maybe you can
guess now why I didn't like Cort Bent."

Camilla withdrew her hands from his and buried her face in them, while
Wray sat gloomily gazing at the opposite wall.  In a moment she raised
her head, her cheeks burning.

"Yes, I understand now," she muttered.  "He was not worth bothering
about."

                     *      *      *      *      *

And now they were at the hotel in New York, where Jeff had come on
business.  The Empire drawing room overlooked Fifth Avenue and the cross
street.  There was a reception room in the French style, a dining room
in English oak, a library (Flemish), smoking room (Turkish), a hall
(Dutch), and a number of bedrooms, each a reproduction of a celebrated
historical apartment.  The wall hangings were of silk, the curtains of
heavy brocade, the pictures poor copies of excellent old masters, the
rugs costly; and the fixtures in Camilla's bathroom were of solid
silver.

Camilla stood before the cheval glass in her dressing room (Recamier)
trying on, with the assistance of her maid and a modiste, a fetching hat
and afternoon costume.  Chairs, tables, and the bed in her own sleeping
room were covered with miscellaneous finery.

When the women had gone, Camilla dropped into a chair in the drawing
room.  There was something about the made-to-order magnificence which
oppressed her with its emptiness.  Everything that money could buy was
hers for the asking.  Her husband was going to be fabulously
wealthy--every month since they had been married had developed new
possibilities.  His foresight was extraordinary, and his luck had become
a by-word in the West. Each of his new ventures had attracted a large
following, and money had flowed into the coffers of the company.  It was
difficult for her to realize all that happened in the wonderful period
since she had sat at her humble desk in the schoolhouse at Mesa City.
She was not sure what it was that she lacked, for she and Jeff got along
admirably, but the room in which she sat seemed to be one expression of
it--a room to be possessed but not enjoyed.  Their good fortune was so
brief that it had no perspective.  Life had no personality. It was made
of Things, like the articles in this drawing room, each one agreeably
harmonious with the other, but devoid of associations, pleasant or
unpleasant.  The only difference between this room and the parlor at
Mrs. Brennan's was that the furniture of the hotel had cost more money.

To tell the truth, Camilla was horribly bored. She had proposed to spend
the mornings, when Jeff was downtown, in the agreeable task of providing
herself with a suitable wardrobe.  But she found that the time hung
heavily on her hands.  The wives of Jeff's business associates in New
York had not yet called.  Perhaps they never would call. Everything here
spoke of wealth, and the entrance of a new millionaire upon the scene
was not such a rare occurrence as to excite unusual comment. She peered
out up the avenue at the endless tide of wealth and fashion which passed
her by, and she felt very dreary and isolated, like a vacant house from
which old tenants had departed and into which new ones would not enter.

She was in this mood when a servant entered. She had reached the point
when even this interruption was welcome, but when she saw that the man
bore a card tray her interest revived, and she took up the bit of
pasteboard with a short sigh of relief.  She looked at it, turned it
over in her fingers, her blood slowing a little, then rushing hotly to
her temples.

Cortland Bent!  She let the card fall on the table beside her.

"Tell him that I am not----" she paused and glanced out of the window.
The quick impulse was gone.  "Tell him--to come up," she finished.

When the page disappeared she glanced about the room, then hurried to
the door to recall him, but he had turned the corner into the corridor
outside, and the message was on its way to a lower floor.

She paused, irresolute, then went in again, closing the outside door
behind her.  What had she done? A message of welcome to Cortland Bent,
the one person in the world she had promised herself she should never
see again; her husband's enemy, her own because he was her husband's;
her own, too, because he had given her pride a wound from which it had
not yet recovered!  What should she do? She moved toward the door
leading to her dressing room--to pause again.

What did it matter after all?  Jeff wouldn't care.  She laughed.  Why
should he?  He could afford to be generous with the man who had lost the
fortune he now possessed.  He had, too, an implicit confidence in her
own judgment, and never since they had been married had he questioned an
action or motive of hers.  As for herself--that was another matter.  She
tossed her head and looked at herself in her mirror.  Should she not
even welcome the opportunity to show Bent how small a place he now held
in her memory?  The mirror told her she was handsome, but she still
lingered before it, arranging her hair, when her visitor was announced.

He stood with his hands behind his back studying the portrait over the
fireplace, turning at the sound of her voice.

"It's very nice of you to see me," he said slowly. "How long have you
been here?"

"A few weeks only.  Won't you sit down?"

A warm color had come to her checks as she realized that he was
carefully scrutinizing her from head to heel.

"Of course we're very much honored----" she began.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you," he broke in warmly.  "I was
tempted to write you a dozen times, but your engagement and marriage to
Wray and"--he paused--"the trouble about the mine seemed to make it
difficult, somehow."

"I'm sure my husband bears you no ill-will."

He gave a short laugh.  "There's no reason why he should.  There's
nothing for _him_ to be upset about.  He got the fortune that
should--which might have been mine--to say nothing of the girl----"

"Perhaps we had better leave the girl out of it," she put in calmly.
"Even time hasn't explained _that_ misunderstanding."

He shrugged a shoulder expressively.  "As you please.  I'll not parade
any ghosts if I can help it. I'm too happy to see you.  You're more
wonderful than ever.  Really I don't believe I should have known you.
You're changed somehow.  I wonder what it is?"

"Prosperity?" she suggested.

"I'm not sure I feel at home with you.  You're so matured, so--so
punctilious and modish."

"You wouldn't have me wear a short skirt and a sombrero?" she said with
a slow smile.

"No, no.  It is not what you wear so much as what you are.  You are
really the great lady.  I think I knew it there in the West."

She glanced around the room.

"This?" she queried.  "This was Jeff's idea." And then, as the possible
disloyalty occurred to her, "You know I would much have preferred a
quieter place.  Fine feathers don't always make fine birds."

"But fine birds can be no less fine whatever they wear."  There was a
pause, and then he asked:

"How long will you be here?"

"All winter, I think.  My husband has business in New York."

"Yes, I know.  Mesa City can spare him best at this season."

Bent took up an ivory paper cutter from the table and sat turning it
over in his fingers.  "I hope--I really hope we may be friends, Mrs.
Wray. I think perhaps if you'll let me I can be of service to you here.
I don't think that there is a chance that I can forget your husband's
getting the 'Lone Tree' away from me.  It's pretty hard to have a
success like that at the tips of one's fingers and not be able to grasp
it.  I've been pretty sick about it, and the governor threatened to
disown me.  But he seems to have taken a fancy to your husband. I
believe that they have some business relations. The fifty thousand
dollars we got in the final settlement salved his wounds I think.  Your
husband has the law on his side and that's all there is to it. I'm glad
he has it for your sake, though, especially as it has given me a chance
to see you again."

"You're very generous," she said.  "I'm sorry. It has worried me a great
deal."

"Oh, well, let's say no more about it," he said more cheerfully.  "I'm
so glad that you're to be here.  What do you think of my little burg?
Does it amuse you at all?  What?  Have you met many people, or don't you
want to meet them?  I'd like you to know my family--my aunt, Mrs.
Rumsen, especially.  She's a bit of a grenadier, but I know you'll get
along.  She always says what she thinks, so you mustn't mind.  She's
quite the thing here. Makes out people's lists for them and all that
kind of thing.  Won't you come and dine with the governor some time?"

"Perhaps it will be time enough when we're asked----"

"Oh--er--of course.  I forgot.  I'll ask Gladys--that's my sister--to
call at once."

"Please don't trouble."

Try as she might to present an air of indifference, down in her heart
she was secretly delighted at his candid, friendly attitude.  No other
could have so effectually salved the sudden searing wound he had once
inflicted.  To-day it was difficult to believe him capable of evil.  He
had tried to forget the past.  Why should not she?  There was another
girl.  Perhaps their engagement had been announced. She knew she was
treading on dangerous ground, but she ventured to ask him.

"Gretchen?" he replied.  "Oh, Lord, no!  Not yet.  You see she has some
ideas of her own on the subject, and it takes at least two to make a
bargain. Miss Janney is a fine sport.  Life is a good deal of a joke
with her, as it is to me, but neither of us feels like carrying it as
far as matrimony.  We get on beautifully.  She's frightfully rich.  I
suppose I'll be, too, some day.  What's the use?  It's a sheer waste of
raw material.  She has a romantic sort of an idea that she wants a poor
man--the sort of chap she can lift out of a gray atmosphere.  And I----"
His voice grew suddenly sober.  "You won't believe that I, too, had the
same kind of notion."

It was some moments before she understood what he meant, but the silence
which followed was expressive.  He did not choose that she should
misunderstand.

"Yes," he added, "I mean you."

She laughed nervously.  "You didn't ask me to marry you?"

"No.  But I might have explained why I didn't if you had given me time.
I don't think I realized what it meant to me to leave you until I
learned that I had to.  Perhaps it isn't too late to tell you now."

She was silent, and so he went on.

"I was engaged to be married.  I have been since I was a boy.  It was a
family affair.  Both of us protested, but my father and hers had set
their hearts on it.  My governor swore he'd cut me off unless I did as
he wished.  And he's not a man to break his word.  I was afraid of him.
I was weak, Camilla.  I'm not ashamed to tell you the truth. I knew
unless I made good at the mine that I should have nothing to offer you.
So I thought if I could get you to come East, stay for a while, and meet
my father, that time might work out our salvation."

She got up hurriedly and walked to the window. "I can't see that you can
do any good telling me this. It means so little," she stammered.

"Only to justify myself.  I want to try and make it possible for you to
understand how things were with me then--how they are now."

"No, no.  It can do no good."

"Let me finish," he said calmly.  "It was the other girl I was thinking
about.  I was still pledged to her.  I could have written her for my
release--but matters came to a crisis rather suddenly. And then you told
me of your engagement to Mr. Wray.  You see, after that I didn't care
what happened."  He paused, leaning with one hand on the table, his head
bent.  "Perhaps I ought not to speak to you in this way now.  But it was
on your own account.  I don't know what I said to you.  I only remember
that I did not ask you to marry me, but that I wanted you with me
always."

His voice sounded very far away to Camilla, like a message from another
life she had lived so long ago that it seemed almost a message from the
dead. She did not know whether what she most felt was happiness or
misery.  The one thing she was sure of was that he had no right to be
speaking to her in this way and that she had no right to be listening.
But still she listened.  His words sank almost to a whisper, but she
heard.  "I wanted you to be with me always.  I knew afterward that I had
never loved any woman but you--God help me--that I never could love any
other woman----"  He stopped again.  In her corner Camilla was crying
softly--tears of pity for him, for the ashes of their dead.

"Don't, dear," he said gently.  She thought he was coming forward and
raised her head to protest, but she saw that he still stood by the
table, his back toward her.  She turned one look of mute appeal, which
he did not see, in his direction, and then rose quickly.

"You must never speak in this way again," she said, with a surer note.
"Never.  I should not have listened.  It is my fault.  But I have been
so--so glad to hear that--you didn't mean what you said.  God knows I
forgive you, and I only hope you can understand--how it was--with me.
You had been so friendly--so clean.  It wounded me--horribly.  It made
me lose my faith in all things, and I wanted to keep you--as a friend."

"I think I may still be a friend."

"I hope so----"  She emerged diffidently and laid her hand gently on his
arm.  "If you want to be my friend you must forget."

"I'll try.  I _have_ tried.  That was easier this morning than it is
this afternoon.  It will be harder to-night--harder still to-morrow."
He gave a short laugh and turned away from her toward the fireplace
where he stood, watching the gray embers.

"Oh, people don't die of this sort of thing," he muttered.

It was almost with an air of unconcern that she began rearranging the
Beauties on the table, speaking with such a genuine spirit of raillery
that he turned to look at her.

"Oh, it isn't nearly as bad as you think it is. A man is never quite so
madly in love that he can't forget.  You've been dreaming.  I was
different from the sort of girls you were used to.  You were in love
with the mountains, and mistook me for background."

"No.  There wasn't any background," he broke in.  "There was never
anything in the picture but you.  I know.  It's the same now."

"Sh--I must not let you speak to me so.  If you do, I must go away from
New York--or you must."

"You wouldn't care."

She could make no reply to that, and attempted none.  When the flowers
were arranged she sat on the edge of the table facing him.  "Perhaps it
would be the better way for me to go back to the West," she said, "but
New York is surely big enough to hold us both without danger of your
meeting me too often.  And I have another idea," her smile came slowly,
with difficulty, "when you see enough of me in your own city, you will
be glad to forget me whether you want to or not.  Perhaps you may meet
me among your own kind of people--your own kind of girls, at dinners, or
at dances.  You don't really know me very well, after all.  Wouldn't it
bother you if from sheer awkwardness I spilled my wine or said 'yes,
ma'am,' or 'no, ma'am,' to my hostess, not because I wanted to, but
because I was too frightened to think of anything else?  Or mistook the
butler for my host?  Or stepped on somebody's toes in a ballroom.  You
know I don't dance very well.  Suppose----"

"Oh, what's the use, Camilla?" he broke in angrily.  "You don't deceive
anybody.  You know that kind of thing wouldn't make any difference to
me."

"But it might to other people.  You wouldn't fancy seeing me
ridiculous."  He turned to the fire again, and she perceived that her
warning hadn't merited the dignity of a reply, but her attitude and the
lighter key in which her tone was pitched had saved the situation.  When
he spoke again, all trace of his discomposure had vanished.

"Oh, I suppose I'll survive.  I've got a name for nerve of a certain
kind, and nobody shall say I ran away from a woman.  I don't suppose
there's any use of my trying to like your husband.  You see, I'm frank
with you.  But I'll swallow a good deal to be able to be near you."

There was a silence during which she keenly searched his face.

"You mustn't dislike Jeff.  I can't permit that. You can't blame him for
being lucky----"

"Lucky?  Yes, I suppose you might call it luck.  Didn't you know how
your husband and Mulrennan got that mine?"

She rose, her eyes full of a new wonder and curiosity.

"They leased it.  Everything was legally done," she said.

"Oh, yes.  Legally----" he paused.

"Go on--go on."

"What is the use?"

"I must know--everything."

"He never told you?  I think I know why. Because your code and his are
different.  The consciences of some men are satisfied if they keep their
affairs within the letter of the law.  But there's a moral law which has
nothing to do with the courts.  He didn't tell you because he knew you
obeyed a different precept."

"What did he do?  Won't you tell me?"




                              *CHAPTER IV*

                          *THE FORBIDDEN WAY*


He came forward and stood facing her, one hand clutching the back of a
chair, his eyes blazing with newly kindled resentment. "Yes, I will tell
you.  It's right for you to know.  There was a man in my employ who had
a fancied grievance against my foreman.  He had no just cause for
complaint.  I found that out and told Harbison to fire him.  If Harbison
had obeyed orders there would have been a different story to tell about
the 'Lone Tree.'  But my foreman took pity on him because he had a
family; then tried to get him started right again.  The man used to work
extra time at night, sometimes with a shift and sometimes alone.  And
one night in the small gallery at the hundred-foot level he found the
vein we had been looking for.  He was a German, Max Reimer, by name----"

"Max Reimer," she repeated mechanically.

"Alone there in that cavern he thought out the plan which afterward
resulted in putting me out of business.  He quickly got some timbers
together and hid the hole he'd made.  This was easy, for the steps and
railing of the winze needed supports and planking.  He put in a blast
farther over and hid the gold-bearing rock--all but a few of the pieces.
These he took out in the pockets of his overalls and carried them to
Jeff Wray----"

"Jeff----"

"Your husband called in Pete Mulrennan, and they talked it over.  Then
one night Pete and Max crept up to the mine, got past the watchman, and
Max showed Pete what he'd found.  I learned all this from Harbison after
they let Max loose."

"Let him loose?  What do you mean?"

"I'll tell you.  Max wanted a lump sum in cash. They laughed at
him--chiefly because they didn't have the money to pay.  Then he wanted
a percentage bigger than they wanted to give.  When they temporized he
got ugly, swore he'd rather run his chances with Harbison and me, but he
never had an opportunity----"

"You don't mean----?" she gasped.

"Wray and Mulrennan lured Reimer to a room over the saloon and got up a
fight; they put him out, gagged and trussed him like a fowl, and left
him there until Jeff Wray had closed the deal with me.  That's how your
husband got my mine."

"It can't be," she stammered.  "Yes--yes. And Reimer?"

"They hid him for two weeks, until they brought to terms."

"I remember," she said, passing her hand over her brow.  "Reimer's boy
was in my school.  They missed old Max.  They thought he had deserted
them.  What a horrible thing!  And Jeff--my husband----"

"That is what people call Jeff Wray's luck," he said, and then added
grimly, "and my misfortune."

"But the law?" she said.  "Was there no way in which you could prove
the--the----"

"The fraud?" he said brutally.  "Oh, yes. The Law!  Do you know who
impersonates the Law in Mesa City?  Pete Mulrennan!  He's judge, court,
and jury.  We had the best lawyer in Denver. But Lawrence Berkely had
done his work too well. There's a suit still pending, but we haven't a
show. Good God, Camilla! do you mean to say you heard nothing of all
this?"

"Nothing," she said.  "Nothing.  When I heard of the suit and questioned
Jeff he--he said it was maliciousness, jealousy, disappointment, and I
believed him."

He turned away from her and paced the floor. "He was right.  It was all
of these.  But there was something else----"

"Oh, I know," she broke in.  "It was what I am feeling now--the sense of
a wrong.  But you forget----"  She got up and faced him, groping vaguely
for an extenuating circumstance.  "That sort of thing has been done in
the West before.  A successful mine is all a matter of luck.  Max
Reimer's find might have only been a pocket.  In that case you would
have been the gainer, and Jeff would have lost."

"That's sophistry.  I can't blame you for defending your husband.  Mines
have been leased and bought on theory--with a chance to win, a chance to
lose--for the mere love of a gamble. There was no gamble here.  The gold
ore was there--one had only to look.  There never has been anything like
it since Cripple Creek.  It was mine.  Jeff Wray wanted it--so he took
it--by force."

She had sunk on the settee between the windows, her face buried in her
hands, and was trying to think.  All this, the hired magnificence, the
empty show, the damask she was sitting on, the rings on her hands, her
clothing even, belonged by every law of decency and morality to the man
who stood there before her.  And the wrong she had so long cherished in
her heart against him was as nothing to the injury her husband had done
to him.  She knew nothing of the law, cared nothing for it.  All she
could think of were the facts of the case as he had presented them.
Cortland told the truth, she recognized it in everything he had said, in
the ringing note of his voice, the clear light of his eye, the
resentment of a nature that had been tried too far.  A hundred forgotten
incidents were now remembered--Jeff's reticence about the law-suit, Max
Reimer's disappearance, the many secret conferences with Mulrennan.  She
wondered that suspicion of Jeff had never entered her mind before.  She
realized now more poignantly than ever that she had been moving blindly,
supinely, under the spell of a personality stronger than her own.  She
recalled the scene in the canon when, beside herself with shame and
mortification, she had struck him in the face and he had only laughed at
her, as he would have laughed at a rebellious child.  In that moment she
had hated him.  The tolerance that had come later had been defensive--a
defense of her pride.  When Cortland Bent had left, she had flown like a
wounded swallow to the hawk's nest, glad of any refuge from the ache at
her heart.

She raised her head and sought Bent's eyes with her own.  A while ago it
had seemed so easy to speak to him.  He had been so gentle with her, and
his reticence had made her own indifference possible. He had gone back
to the dead fire again as though to find there a phenix of his lost
hope, and was leaning with an elbow on the mantel, his head bowed in
subjection.  He had put his fetters on again as though to make her
understand that his sharp indictment of her husband had not been
intended to include the woman he loved.  Painfully she rose and took a
step toward him, and, when she spoke, her voice was low and constrained,
for her thoughts came with difficulty.

"You are right.  There _is_ a moral code--a law of conscience.  In my
heart I know that no matter what other men have done in the West in
their madness for gold, the fever for wealth, nothing the law holds will
make Jeff's responsibility to you any the less in my sight.  I--I did
not know. You believe me, don't you?  I did not know.  Even if I had
known, perhaps it would not have made any difference.  But I am sure of
one thing--I could never have married a man to live on what he had
stolen from another."  As he turned toward her she put her hands over
her face.  "Oh, I am shamed--shamed.  Perhaps I could have done
something; I would have tried.  You know that I would have tried--don't
you?"

"Yes, yes, I know.  I would not have told, I would not have made you
unhappy--but it maddens me to see you here with what is mine--his wife."
He took her hands down and made her look in his face.  "Don't think
harshly of me.  It isn't the money.  If you could have had it--if you
didn't have to share it with him--can't you understand?"

But she would not look at him, and only murmured, "I understand--I
understand many things I did not know before.  But the one thing that
seems most important is that I am his wife. Whatever he has done to
others, he has been very good, very gentle and kind to me."

He dropped her hands and turned violently away. "How could you?" he
groaned.  "How could you have married him?"

"God knows!"

The words were wrung from her quickly, like the sudden dropping of a
burden which shocked by the noise of its impact before she was conscious
of its loss.  She turned in the same moment and looked at him, hoping
that he had not heard her. But before she could prevent him he had
caught her in his arms and held her close to his body, so that, struggle
as she might, there was no chance for her to escape.  And in his eyes
she saw the gleam of an old delight, a bright, wild spark among the
embers of bitterness.

"Camilla!" he whispered.  "I know now.  God forgive me that I did not
know before--out there in the schoolhouse, when you gave yourself to
him. You loved me then--you love me now.  Isn't that why you tremble,
Camilla?  You need not speak.  Your heart is close to mine and I can
read----"

"No, no, no," she murmured.  "It is not true. You must not.  I did not
mean--what I said, you misunderstood----"

"Once I misunderstood.  I won't make the same mistake again.  It was I
who found you there, parching in the desert, and taught you how to
grow--who showed you that life was something more than the barren waste
you had found it. Won't you forgive me?  I was a fool--and worse.  Look
up at me, Camilla, dear.  You were mine out there before you were his.
At least a half of what Jeff Wray has stolen from me--your spiritual
side----"

At the sound of her husband's name she raised her head and looked up at
him in a daze.  He caught her again madly, and his lips even brushed her
cheek, but she started from his arms and sped the length of the room
away from him.

"Camilla!"

"No, no.  You must not."  She stood facing him, wildly pleading.  "Don't
come near me, Cort. Is this the way you are going to try to forget--the
way you will teach me to forget?"

"I didn't know then--I want you, Camilla----"

As he came forward she retreated to the door of the library and put her
hand on the knob.  She did not hear the soft patter of feet on the other
side.

"Then I must go," she said decisively.

He stopped, looked at her blankly, then turned away.

"I suppose you're right," he said quietly.  "Forgive me.  I had almost
forgotten."

He slowly paced the room away from her and, his head in his hands, sank
in a distant chair.  He heard her sharp sigh and the sound of her
footsteps as she gathered courage and came forward.  But he did not
move, and listened with the dull ears of a broken man from whom all hope
has departed.

"It is going to be harder than I thought.  I hoped at least that I could
keep what was in my heart a secret.  When my secret was my own it did
not seem as if I was doing any injustice to--to Jeff.  It was my heart
that was breaking--not his.  What did my secrets matter as long as I did
my duty?  But now that you share the burden I know that I am doing him a
great wrong--a greater wrong even than he has done to you.  I can't
blame you for coming here.  It is hard to forgive a wrong like that.
But with me it is different.  No matter what Jeff has done, what he may
do, my duty is very clear--my duty to him, and even to you.  I don't
know just how--I must have time to think it out for myself.  One thing
is certain: I must not see you again."

He waved a hand in deprecation.  "That is so easy to say.  You shall see
me again," he threatened.  "I will not give you up."

"You must!  I will find some excuse to leave New York."

"I'll follow you," doggedly.  "You're mine."

She paused in dismay.  Were all the odds to be against her?  A sudden
terror gripped her heart and left her supine.  She summoned her strength
with an effort.

"Cort!" she cried desperately.  "You must not speak to me like that.  I
will not listen.  You don't know what you are saying."

"I don't care what I'm saying--you have driven me mad."  As he rose, she
retreated, still facing him, her lips pale, her eyes bright, her face
drawn but resolved.

"And I," she said clearly, "I am sane again. If you follow--I will ring.
Do you hear?"

Her hand sought the wall, then was arrested in mid air.  A sound of
voices, the ringing of a bell, and the soft patter of a servant's steps
in the corridor brought Cortland Bent to his senses.

"It's Jeff," she whispered breathlessly; and then with a quiet air of
self-command, the dignity of a well-bred hostess, "Will you sit down,
Mr. Bent? I will ring for tea."

In the shadowed doorway a tall figure stood.

"Why, Jeff," said Camilla coolly, "you're early, aren't you?  I
thought----"

She rose as she realized that the gentleman in the doorway wore a frock
coat--a garment Jeff affected to despise--and that the hair at his
temples was white.  "I beg your pardon," she murmured.

The gentleman smiled and came forward into the room with outstretched
hand.

"I am General Bent.  Is this Mrs. Wray?  Your husband is coming along."

Jeff entered from the corridor at this moment. "Hello, Camilla!  The
General was kind enough to say he wanted to meet you, so he brought me
uptown in his machine."

The eyes of both newcomers fell on Cortland Bent, who emerged from the
shadow.

"Why, Cort!  You here?" said the General, and if his quick tones showed
slight annoyance, his well-bred accents meant only polite inquiry.

"Yes, dad.  How do you do, Mr. Wray?"

Wray went over and took him by the hand.

"Well! well!" said Wray heartily.  "This is sure like old times.  Glad
to see you, Bent.  It seems like only yesterday that you and Camilla
were galloping over the plains together.  A year and a half has made
some changes, eh?  Camilla, can't we have a drink?  One doesn't meet old
friends every day."

"I rang for tea."

"Tea?  Ugh!  Not tea, Camilla.  I can't get used to these foreign
notions.  General--Cort--some Scotch?  That's better.  Tea was invented
for sick people and old maids," and then, as the servant entered, "Tell
Greer to bring the tray, and some cigars.  You'll let us, won't you,
Camilla? General Bent and I have been talking for two hours, and if
there's any thirstier business than that----"

"I hope we aren't intruding," said the General. "I have been very
anxious to meet you, Mrs. Wray."

"I'm very much flattered.  I'm afraid, though, that Jeff has taken you
out of your way."  She paused, conscious that the sharp eyes of the old
man were peering at her curiously from under the shadows of his bushy
eyebrows.  "I feel as if I ought to know you very well," she went on.
"In the West your son often spoke of you."

"Did he?  H--m!"  And then, with a laugh, "Cortland, my boy, what did
you say to her? You expected to see an old ogre, didn't you?"

"Oh, no, but you are different from the idea I had of you.  You and your
son are not in the least alike, are you?"

"No.  You see Cortland took the comeliness of the Davidges, and I--well,
I won't tell you what they call me in the Street," he laughed grimly.
"You know Mr. Wray and I have some interests in the West in common--some
properties that adjoin, and some railroads that join.  It's absurdly
simple.  _He_ wants what _I_ have, and _I_ want what _he_ has, and
neither of us is willing to give up a square inch.  Won't you tell us
what to do?"

"I give it up," she laughed.  "My husband has a way of getting what he
wants."

"The great secret of that," said Wray comfortably, "is wanting what you
can get.  Still, I don't doubt that when the General's crowd gets
through with me there won't be enough of me to want anything.  You
needn't worry about the 'Lone Tree,' Cortland.  You'll have it again,
after a while, when my hide is spread out to dry."

General Bent's eyes vanished under his heavy brows.

"No," he said cryptically.  "It looks as though the fruit of the 'Lone
Tree' was forbidden."




                              *CHAPTER V*

                              *DINERS OUT*


When the visitors had gone, Camilla disappeared in the direction of her
own apartment.  The thought of being alone with Jeff was intolerable to
her.  She must have time to think, to wash away the traces of her
emotion, which she was sure even the shadows of the drawing room could
hardly have hidden from the sharp eyes of her elderly guest.  Her
husband had given no indication of having noticed anything unusual in
her appearance, but she knew that he would not have let her discover it
if he had.  She breathed a sigh of relief when the door was closed
behind her, dismissed her maid, and, slipping into a comfortable
garment, threw herself face downward on a couch and buried her head in
its pillow.

Out of the disordered tangle of her thoughts one idea gradually
evolved--that she must not see Cortland Bent again.  She could not plan
just now how she was to avoid him, for General Bent had already invited
them to dine at his house, and she knew that she must go, for Jeff's
sake, no matter what it cost her.  She could not blame Cortland as much
as she blamed herself, for she realized now how vulnerable she had been
even from the first moment when she had entered the room, bravely
assuring herself that she cared for him no longer.  The revelation of
her husband's part in the lease of the "Lone Tree" had shocked her, but
even her abomination of his brutal method of consummating the business
was lost in the discovery of her own culpability.  Before to-day it had
not seemed so great a sin to hold another man's image in her heart, but
the disclosure of her secret had robbed it of some of the dignity of
seclusion.  The one thing that had redeemed her in the past had been the
soft pains of self-abnegation, and now she had not even those to comfort
her.

The revelation to Cort had even made their relation a little brutal.
She fought with herself silently, proposing subterfuge and sophistry,
then dragging her pitiful treasure forth remorselessly under the garish
light of conscience.  She could not understand the change that
Cortland's presence made; for what yesterday had been only unduteous,
to-day was a sin.  What then had been a balm was now a poison.


Morning brought regeneration.  The sun shone brightly through her yellow
curtains, and her maid brought with her breakfast tray a note from the
contrite Cortland.


"Forgive me, Camilla.  Forgive me.  Call me selfish, unreasonable,
cruel--anything you like--but don't tell me I shall not see you again.
You will find me a model of all the virtues.  Gladys is calling on you
to-day.  You are coming to the dinner, aren't you?  I will be there--in
a corner somewhere, but I won't bother you.  The night has brought me
patience.  Forgive me.

"C."


Camilla slipped the note among her laces, and when Jeff looked in to
bring her the invitation which had arrived in the morning mail to dine
at the house of Cornelius Bent, she presented a fair face and joyous
countenance.


General Bent's dinners had a way of being ponderous--like himself.  From
soup to coffee the victuals were rich and highly seasoned, the wines
full-bodied; his dishes were heavy, his silver-service massive, his
furniture capacious.  The impression of solidity was further enhanced by
the thick oak paneling, the wide fireplace, and the sumptuous
candelabra.  Many, if not all, of these adjectives might readily be
applied to his men-servants, who had been so long in his employ that the
essentials of their surroundings had been seared into their souls.  The
Bent regime was their religion, the General its high priest, and their
offices components of a ceremony which they observed with impressive
dignity and sedate fervor.

As a rule, the personality of the General's guests did nothing to
detract from the impression of opulence.  They were the heavy men of
affairs, the big men of clubdom, of business, of religion, of politics.
Camilla had been warned of what she must expect, but it was with
feelings of trepidation not far removed from awe that she and Jeff got
down from their taxi under the glow of the porte-cochere before the wide
portal of the great house in Madison Avenue.  Her last admonition to her
husband in the cab had been, "Jeff, don't shuffle your feet!  And don't
say 'ma'am.'  And keep your hands out of your pockets!  If you can't
think of anything to say, don't say it."

Wray only laughed.  He was very much at his ease, for he had convinced
himself downtown that the doors of the Bent establishment would not have
swung so wide had the General not found that Wray's holdings and
influence in the West were matters which some day he would have to
reckon with.

When they arrived they were pleased to discover that there were to be
young people among the guests as well as old.  Three stout, florid
gentlemen, members of the directorate of the Amalgamated Reduction
Company, whom Jeff had met downtown, with their wives, and Mr. and Mrs.
Worthington Rumsen lent their share to the dignity the General required,
but there was a leaven of a younger set in Gladys, his daughter (Mrs.
Bent had died many years before), Cortland, his son, and some others.
Most of the guests were already in the drawing room when the Wrays were
announced.  And Camilla entered a little uncertainly, her eyes
sparkling, seeking her hostess.  There was a subdued masculine murmur of
approval, a raising of lorgnons to aged feminine noses, a general
movement of appreciation.

Camilla was radiant.  Cortland Bent came forward from his corner, slowly
drinking in her loveliness with his eyes.  She was gowned in white and
wore no ornaments.  The slenderness which all women ape was hers without
asking.  Her ruddy hair at the last moment had resisted the arts of the
hair-dresser, and so she wore it as she had always done, in a heavy coil
like a rope of flame.  If she had been pale as she entered, the blood
now flowed quickly--almost too quickly to be fashionable--suffusing her
face and gently warming her splendid throat and shoulders.

"Am I late?" she asked.  "I'm so sorry.  Will you forgive me?"

"You're not late," said her hostess.  "Awfully glad----"

"We're bountifully repaid," put in General Bent gallantly, as he came
forward.  "I'm sure you're quite worth waiting for.  I've been telling
New York for years it had better keep its eyes on the West.  Now I must
warn its women.  How are you, Wray?  You know Warrington--and Janney.
Let me present you, Wray--the Baroness Charny."

Jeff felt himself appraised civilly.

"You are _the_ Mr. Wray?" she asked him.  "The rich Mr. Wray?"

Jeff flushed with pleasure.  Nothing ever tickled him more than a
reference to his possessions.

"I'm Wray--from Colorado.  And you--you know I've never seen a real live
baroness before. So don't mind if I look at you a little.  You see, we
never have anybody like you out our way----"

"I don't mind in the least," she said with a slight accent.  "What did
you think a baroness ought to look like?"

"I had a kind of an idea she was stoutish, wore a crown, and sat in a
big chair all day, ordering people around."

"I'm afraid you read fairy stories.  I don't own a crown, and I might
order people all day, but nobody would pay the least attention to me."

"What a pity," he said soberly.

His ingenuousness was refreshing.

"You know, Mr. Wray, baronesses aren't any more important nowadays than
anybody else. The only barons worth while in the world are the Coal
Barons, the Wheat Barons, the Gold Barons, like you."  And then, "Did
you know that you were to take me in?  Are you glad?"

"Of course," with a vague attempt at gallantry. "I'd take you anywhere
and be proud to."

"Then give me your arm," she laughed.  And they followed the others in
to dinner.  Wray's other neighbor was Mrs. Rumsen, his host's sister.
Camilla had related many tales of her social prowess, and she was really
the only person at the table of whom Jeff stood the least in awe.  Mrs.
Rumsen's nose was aquiline like her brother's, her eyebrows high and
slightly arched, her eyes small and rather close together, as though
nature had intended them for a short but concentrated vision.  She held
her head very erect, and from her great height was enabled without
pretence to look down on all lesser things.  Cortland had described her
as a grenadier, and, as Wray realized that the moment when he must talk
to her was inevitably approaching, he lost some faith in his moods and
tenses.

"Mr. Wray," she began, in a tone which was clearly to be heard the
length of the table, "you have a handsome wife."

"Yes, ma'am," he drawled.  "I'm glad you think so, Mrs. Rumsen."

"A woman with her looks and your money could have the world at her feet
if she wished."

"Yes.  I've told her the same thing.  But I don't think she likes a
fuss.  Why, I sent up a whole carload of hats--all colors, with plumes
and things, but she wouldn't have one of them."

The old lady's deep wrinkles relaxed.

"And diamonds----" he went on.  "She's got half a peck, but I can't get
her to put them on."

Mrs. Rumsen did not reply, only examined him with her small eyes through
her lorgnon.

"You know, Mr. Wray, ever since you came into the room you have been a
puzzle to me.  Your features resemble those of some one I have
known--years ago--some one I have known intimately--curious I can't----"

"Have you ever been West?"

"Oh, yes.  Were your people----?"

"I have no people, Mrs. Rumsen," he said with a quick air of finality.

"Oh!"  She still looked at him wonderingly. "I beg your pardon."  Then
she went on calmly, "You really interest me a great deal.  I have seen
Westerners in New York before--but you're different--I mean," she added,
"the cut of your nose, the lines of your chin, the set of your head on
your shoulders.  I hope you'll forgive an old woman's curiosity."

Jeff bowed politely.  "I'm very much flattered, Mrs. Rumsen."

"You and my brother have business interests in common?"

"Yes, I've a mine--a chain of mines and property interests, including a
control of the Denver and Western Railroad."

She laid a hand impressively on his arm.

"Hold them.  Take my advice and hold them. I know it is a great
temptation to extend your control, to be a big man East and West.  But
don't try it by weakening what you have.  Other men have come here to
set the Hudson afire----"

"Some of them have done it, too, Mrs. Rumsen."

She shrugged.  "What is the use?  You have an empire of your own.  Stay
at home, develop it. Wouldn't you rather be first in Mantua than second
in Rome?"

"I--I'm afraid I don't just take you?"

"I mean, wouldn't you rather be an emperor among your own people than
fetch and carry--as so many others are doing--for Wall Street?"

"That's just the point.  Only the boot is on the other leg.  Wall Street
needs the West.  Wall Street doesn't think so.  It's away behind the
times.  Those people downtown are so stuck on themselves that they think
the whole country is stooping with its ear to the ground listening to
what they're doing.  Why, Mrs. Rumsen, there are men in the West--big
men, too--who think Wall Street is a joke.  Funny, isn't it?  Wall
Street doesn't seem to know that millions of acres of corn, of wheat,
and potatoes keep growing just the same.  Those things don't wait to
hear what Wall Street thinks.  Only God Almighty can make 'em stop
growing.  And as long as they grow, we don't bother much."

She smiled approvingly.

"Then why do you care?"

"Oh, I'm a kind of missionary.  These people downtown are heathen
critters.  They're so ignorant about their own country it almost makes
me ashamed to talk to them."

The last vestige of the grenadier aspect in Mrs. Rumsen had vanished,
and her face dissolved in smiles.

"Heathens!  They are," she laughed delightedly. "Critters--yes,
critters, too.  Splendid!  Have you told Cornelius--my brother--that?"

Wray's truffle stuck in his throat and he gasped, "Good God, ma'am!  No.
You won't tell him, will you?"

"I'd like to," she chuckled.  "But I won't."

Jeff laughed.  "I'm afraid I've put my foot in it.  I'm apt to.  I'm
rather a raw product----"

"Whatever you do, Mr. Wray, don't change. You're positively refreshing.
Anybody can learn to be good form.  It's as simple as a, b, c.  If it
wasn't easy there wouldn't be so many people practising it.  The people
in the shops even adopt our adjectives before they're well out of our
mouths. Hats are 'smart,' when in earlier days they were simply
'becoming.'  Gowns are 'fetching' or 'stunning' that were once merely
'pretty.'  Let a fashionable Englishman wear a short coat with a high
hat to the Horse Show, and every popinjay in town will be doing the same
thing in a week. If you're a raw product, remain so by all means. Raw
products are so much more appetizing than half-baked ones."

"I don't think there's any way to make me any different, Mrs. Rumsen,"
he laughed, "even if I wanted to be.  People will have to take me as I
am.  Your brother has been kind.  It seems as if he had a broader view
of our people than most of the others."

"Don't be too sure.  They're all tarred with the same stick.  It's a
maxim of mine never to put my trust in any person or thing below
Twenty-third Street.  The farther downtown you go, the deeper the
villainy.  You'll find all New Yorkers much the same.  Out of business
hours they are persons of the most exemplary habits, good fathers,
vestrymen in churches, excellent hosts.  In business----" she held up
her hands in mock horror.

"Oh, I know," Wray chuckled.  "But I'm not afraid.  I'm something of a
wolf myself.  Your brother needs me more than I need him.  I think we'll
get along."

"You have everything you want.  Take my advice and keep your money in
the West."

"Thanks.  But I like New York, and I don't want to be idle.  Besides,
there's Camilla--Mrs. Wray, you know."

"Yes, I see.  I can't blame her.  No woman with her looks wants to waste
them on mountain scenery.  I must know her better--and you. She must let
me call on her.  I'm giving a ball later.  Do you think you could come?"

And the great lady turned to her dinner partner.

The Baroness, too, was amiable.  It was her first visit to America.  Her
husband was an attache of an embassy in Washington.  She had not yet
been in the West.  Were all the men big, as Mr. Wray was?

She had a charming faculty of injecting the personal note into her
questions, and before he was aware of it Wray found himself well
launched in a description of his country--the mountains, the plains, the
cowboys.

She had never heard of cowboys.  What were they?  Little cows?

Jeff caught a warning look from Camilla across the table, which softened
his laughter.  He explained, and the Baroness joined in the merriment.
Then he told her that he had been for years a cowpuncher down in Arizona
and New Mexico before he went into business, described the "round-up,"
the grub wagon, and told her of a brush with some Yaqui Indians who were
on the warpath.  When he began, the other people stopped talking and
listened.  Jeff was in his element and without embarrassment finished
his story amid plaudits. Camilla, listening timidly, was forced to admit
that his domination of the table was complete.  The conversation became
general, a thing which rarely happened at the Bent dinners, and Jeff
discovered himself the centre of attention.  Almost unconsciously he
found himself addressing most of his remarks to a lady opposite, who had
listened and questioned with an unusual show of interest.

When the ices were passed he turned to Mrs. Rumsen and questioned.

"Haven't you met her?"  And then, across the table, "Rita--you haven't
met Mr. Wray--Mrs. Cheyne."




                              *CHAPTER VI*

                             *MRS. CHEYNE*


Over the coffee, curiously enough, there seemed to be a disposition to
refrain from market quotations, for General Bent skilfully directed the
conversation into other channels--motoring--aviation--the Horse
Show--the newest pictures in the Metropolitan--and Jeff listened avidly,
newly alive to the interests of these people, who, as Mrs. Rumsen had
said, above Twenty-third Street took on a personality which was not to
be confounded with the life downtown, where he had first met them.  When
Curtis Janney asked him if he rode, Jeff only laughed.

"Oh, yes, of course you do.  One doesn't punch cattle for nothing.  But
jumping is different--and then there's the saddle----"

"Oh, I think I can stay on without going for the leather.  Anyway, I'd
like to try."

"Right-o!" said Janney heartily.  "We've had one run already--a drag.
Couldn't you and Mrs. Wray come out soon?  We're having a few people for
the hunt week after next.  There will be Cortland Bent, Jack Perot, the
Rumsens, the Billy Havilands, Mrs. Cheyne, the Baroness and--if you'll
come along--yourselves."

"Delighted.  I'm sure Camilla will be glad to accept.  We haven't many
engagements."

"I think you've hidden your wife long enough, Mr. Wray.  Does she ride,
too?"

"Like a breeze--astride.  But she wouldn't know what to do on a
side-saddle."

"I don't blame her.  Some of our women ride across.  Gladys, Gretchen,
Mrs. Cheyne----"

"Well," Jeff silently raised his brandy glass in imitation of his
companion, "I'm glad there are a few horses somewhere around here--I
haven't seen any outside of the shafts of a hansom since I left the
West."

"The horse would soon be extinct if it wasn't for Curtis Janney," put in
the General breezily. "Why, he won't even own a motor.  No snorting
devils for him.  Might give his horses the pip or something.  The stable
is worth seeing, though. You're going, aren't you, Wray?"

In the library, later, Wray found Mrs. Cheyne. Until he had come to New
York Wray's idea of a woman had never strayed from Camilla.  There were
other females in the Valley, and he had known some of them, but Camilla
had made any comparison unfortunate.  She was a being living in a sphere
apart, with which mere clay had nothing in common.  He had always
thought of her as he thought of the rare plants in Jim Noakes'
conservatory in Denver, flowers to be carefully nurtured and admired.
Even marriage had made little difference in his point of view.  It is
curious that he thought of these things when he leaned over Mrs. Cheyne.
To his casual eye this new acquaintance possessed many of the
characteristics of his wife. Perhaps even more than Camilla she
represented a mental life of which he knew nothing, contributed more
than her share to the sublimated atmosphere in which he found himself
moving.  They might have been grown in the same conservatory, but, if
Camilla was the Orchid, Mrs. Cheyne was the Poinsettia flower.  And yet
she was not beautiful as Camilla was.  Her features, taken one at a
time, were singularly imperfect.  He was almost ready to admit that she
wasn't even strikingly pretty. But as he looked at her he realized for
the first time in his life the curious fact that a woman need not be
beautiful to be attractive.  He saw that she was colorful and unusually
shapely, and that she gave forth a flow of magnetism which her air of
_ennui_ made every effort to deny.  Her eyes, like her hair, were brown,
but the pupils, when she lifted her lids high enough to show them, were
so large that they seemed much darker.  Her dinner dress, cut straight
across her shoulders, was of black, like the jewelled bandeau in her
hair and the pearls which depended from her ears.  These ornaments,
together with the peculiar dressing of her hair, gave her well-formed
head an effect which, if done in brighter hues, might have been
barbaric, but which, in the subdued tones of her color scheme, only
added to the impression of sombre distinction.

As he approached, she looked up at him sleepily.

"I thought you were never coming," she said.

"Did you?" said Wray, bewildered.  "I--I came as soon as I could, Mrs.
Cheyne.  We had our cigars----"

"Oh, I know.  Men have always been selfish--they always will be selfish.
Cousin Cornelius is provincial to herd the men and women--like
sheep--the ones in one pen, the others in another. There isn't a salon
in Europe--a real salon--where the women may not smoke if they like."

"You want to smoke----"

"I'm famished--but the General doesn't approve----"

Wray had taken out his cigarette case.  "Couldn't we find a spot?"

She rose and led the way through a short corridor to the conservatory,
where they found a stone bench under a palm.

He offered her his case, and she lit the cigarette daintily, holding it
by the very tips of her fingers, and steadying her hand against his own
as Wray would have done with a man's.  Wray did not speak.  He watched
her amusedly, aware of the extraordinary interest with which she
invested his pet vice.

"Thanks," she said gratefully.  Turning toward him then, she lowered her
chin, opened her eyes, and looked straight into his.

"You know, you didn't come to me nearly as soon as I thought you would."

"I--I didn't know----"

"You should have known."

"Why should I----?"

"Because I wanted you to."

"I'm glad you wanted me.  I think I'd have come anyway."

She smiled approvingly.

"Then my efforts were unnecessary."

"Your efforts?"

"Yes, I willed it.  You interested me, you see."

He looked at her quickly.  Her eyes only closed sleepily, then opened
again.

"I'm lucky," he said, "that's sure."

"How do you know?  I may not be at all the kind of person you think I
am."

"I'll take a chance on that--but I wish you'd tell me what made you want
me."

"I was bored.  I usually am.  The Bent parties are so formal and
tiresome.  Everybody always says the same things--does the same things."
She sighed deeply.  "If Cousin Cornelius saw me now I'd be in disgrace.
I wonder why I always like to do the things people don't expect me to."

"You wouldn't be much of a woman if you didn't," he laughed.  "But I
like surprises.  There wouldn't be much in life if you knew what was
going to happen every minute."

"You didn't think I was going to happen then?"

"Er--no.  Maybe I hoped so."

"Well," she smiled, "I have happened.  What are you going to do about
it?"

"Be thankful--mostly.  You seem sort of human, somehow.  You do what you
want to--say what you want----"

"And if I don't get what I want, ask for it," she laughed.  "I told
Gladys it was very inconsiderate of her not to send you in to dinner
with me.  She's always doing that sort of thing.  Gladys lacks a sense
of proportion.  As it is, the evening is almost gone, and we've only
begun."

"I feel as if I'd known you for years," said Jeff heartily.  "That's
funny, too," he added, "because you're so different from any other woman
I've ever known.  You look as if you might have come from a book--but
you speak out like Mesa City."

"Tell me about Mesa City.  You know I was out West last year."

"Were you?  Sure?" eagerly.  "In Colorado?"

"Oh, yes," she said slowly, "but I was living in Nevada."

"Nevada?  That was my old stamping ground. I punched for the Bar Circle
down there.  What part?"

"Reno."

"Oh!"

"I went there for my divorce."

His voice fell a note.  "I didn't know that. I'm awfully sorry you were
so unfortunate.  Won't you tell me about it?"

"There's nothing to tell.  Cheyne and I were incompatible--at least
that's what the lawyers said.  As such things go, I thought we got along
beautifully.  We weren't in the least incompatible so long as Cheyne
went his way and let me go mine. It's so easy for married people to
manage, if they only knew how.  But Cheyne didn't.  He didn't want to be
with me himself--and he didn't want any one else to be.  So things came
to a pretty pass. It actually got so bad that when people wanted either
of us to dinner they had to write first to inquire which of us was to
stay away.  It made a lot of trouble, and the Cheyne family got to be a
bore--so we decided to break it up."

"Was he unkind to you--cruel?"

"Oh, dear, no!  I wish he had been.  Our life was one dreadful round of
cheerful monotony.  I got so tired of the shape of his ears that I could
have screamed.  Yes, I really think," she mused, "that it was his ears."

Wray examined her with his baby-like stare as though she had been a
specimen of ore.  There seemed to be no doubt of the fact that she was
quite serious.

"I'm really sorry for him.  It is--very sad----"

She threw her head back and laughed softly.

"My dear Mr. Wray, your sympathy is touching--he would appreciate it as
much as I do--if he had not already married again."

"Married?  Here in New York?"

"Oh, yes.  They're living within a stone's throw of my house."

"Do you see him?"

"Of course.  I dined with them only last week. You see," and she leaned
toward him with an air of new confidences, "that's only human.  I can't
really give up anything I've once possessed.  You know, I try not to
sell horses that I've liked.  I did sell one once, and he turned up one
morning in a hired brougham.  That taught me a lesson I've never
forgotten.  Now when they outlive their usefulness I turn them out on my
farm in Westchester.  Of course, I couldn't do that to Harold, but I did
the next best thing.  I've satisfied myself that he's properly looked
after--and I'm sure he'll reflect credit on his early training."

"And he's happy?"

"Blissfully so.  It wouldn't be possible for a man to have the
advantages of a training like the one I have given him and not be able
to make a woman happy."

"But he didn't make _you_ happy."

"Me?  Oh, I wasn't made for bondage of any kind. Most women marry
because they're bored or because they're curious.  In either case they
pay a penalty. Marriage provides no panacea.  One only becomes more
bored--with one's own husband--or more curious about other people's
husbands."

"Are you curious?  You don't look as if you cared enough to be curious."

"I do care."  She held her cigarette at arm's length and flicked off its
ash with her little finger. "Mr. Wray, I'll let you into a secret.  A
woman never appears so bored as when she is intensely interested in
something--never so much interested as when she is bored to extinction.
I am curious.  I am trying to learn (without asking you impertinent
questions) how on earth you and Mrs. Wray ever happened to marry."

She tilted her chin impudently and looked down her nose at him, her eyes
masked by her dark lashes, through which it hardly seemed possible that
she could see him at all.  Jeff laughed.  She had her nerve with her, he
thought, but her frankness was amusing.  He liked the way she went after
what she wanted.

"Oh, Camilla--I don't know.  It just happened, I guess.  She's more your
kind than mine. I'm a good deal of a scrub, Mrs. Cheyne.  You see, I
never went to college--or even to high school.  Camilla knows a lot.
She used to teach, but I reckon she's about given up the idea of trying
to teach _me_.  I'm a low-brow all right.  I never read a novel in my
life."

"You haven't missed much.  Books were only meant for people who are
willing to take life at second-hand.  One year of the life you lived on
the range is worth a whole shelf-ful.  The only way to see life is
through one's own eyes."

"Oh, I've seen life.  I've been a cowboy, rancher, speculator, miner,
and other things.  And I've seen some rough times.  But I wouldn't have
worked at those things if I hadn't needed the money.  Now I've got it,
maybe I'll learn something of the romantic side of life."

She leaned back and laughed at him.  "You dear, delicious man.  Then it
has never occurred to you that during all these years you've been living
a romance?"

He looked at her askance.

"And then, to cap it all," she finished, "you discover a gold mine, and
marry the prettiest woman in the West.  I suppose you'll call that
prosaic, too.  You're really quite remarkable.  What is it that you
expect of life after all?"

"I don't know," he said slowly, "something more----"

"But there's nothing left."

"Oh, yes, there is.  I've only tasted success, but it's good, and I like
it.  What I've got makes me want more.  There's only one thing in the
world that really means anything to me--and that's power----"

"But your money----"

"Yes, money.  But money itself doesn't mean anything to me--idle
money--the kind of money you people in New York are content to live on,
the interest on land or bonds.  It's what live, active money can do that
counts with me.  My money has got to keep working the way I work--only
harder.  Some people worship money for what it can buy their bodies.  I
don't.  I can't eat more than three square meals a day.  I want my money
to make the desert bloom--to make the earth pay up what it owes, and
build railroads that will carry its products where they're needed.  I
want it to take the miserable people away from the alleys in your city
slums and put them to work in God's country, where their efforts will
count for something in building up the waste ground that's waiting for
them out there.  Why, Mrs. Cheyne, last year I took up a piece of
desert.  There wasn't a thing on it but rabbit-brush.  Last spring I
worked out a colonization plan and put it through.  There's a town there
now called Wrayville, with five thousand inhabitants, two hotels, three
miles of paved sidewalk, a public school, four factories, and two
newspapers.  All that in six months.  It's a hummer, I can tell you."

As he paused for breath she sighed.  "And yet you speak of romance."

"Romance?  There's no romance in that.  That's just get-up-and-get.  I
had to hustle, Mrs. Cheyne. I'd promised those people the water from the
mountains on a certain date, but I couldn't do it, and the big ditch
wasn't finished.  I was in a bad fix, for I'd broken my word.  Those
people had paid me their money, and they threatened to lynch me.  They
had a mass meeting and were calling me some ugly names when I walked in.
Why they didn't take a shot at me then, I don't know--but they didn't.
I got up on the table, and, when they stopped yelling, I began to talk
to 'em. I didn't know just what to say, but I knew I had to say
something and make good--or go out of town in a pine box.  I began by
telling 'em what a great town Wrayville was going to be.  They only
yelled, 'Where's our water?'  I told them it was coming.  They tried to
hoot me down, but I kept on."

"Weren't you afraid?"

"You bet I was.  But _they_ never knew it.  I tried to think of a reason
why they didn't have that water, and in a moment they began to listen.
I told 'em there was thirty thousand dollars' worth of digging to be
done.  I told 'em it would _be_ done, too, but that I didn't see why
that money should go out of Wrayville to a lot of contractors in Denver.
I'd been saving that work for the citizens of Wrayville.  I was prepared
to pay the highest wages for good men, and, if Wrayville said the word,
they could begin the big ditch to-morrow."

"What did they do?"

"They stopped yelling right there, and I knew I had 'em going.  In a
minute they started to cheer. Before I finished they were carrying me
around the hall on their shoulders.  Phew--but that took some quick
thinking."

Mrs. Cheyne had started forward when he began, and, as he went on, her
eyes lost their sleepy look, her manner its languor, and she followed
him to the end in wonder.  When he stopped, she sank back in her corner,
smiling, and repeated: "Romance? What romance is there left in the world
for a man like you?"

He looked up at her with his baby stare and then laughed awkwardly.
"You're making fun of me, Mrs. Cheyne.  I've been talking too much, I
reckon."

She didn't reply at once, and the look in her eyes embarrassed him.  He
reached for his cigarette case, offered it to her, and, when she
refused, took one himself, lit it slowly, gazing out of the transom
opposite.

"I hope I haven't tired you, Mrs. Cheyne.  It's dangerous to get me
talking about myself.  I never know when to stop."

"I don't want you to stop.  I've never been so entertained in my life.
I don't believe you know how interesting you are."

He turned toward her, embarrassed and still incredulous.  "You're very
kind," he muttered.

"You mustn't be so humble," she broke in sharply.  "You weren't so a
minute ago.  I like you best when you are talking of yourself."

"I thought I'd like to talk about you."

She waved a hand in deprecation.  "Me?  Oh, no.  We can't come to earth
like that.  Tell me another fairy tale."

"Fairy tale?  Then you don't believe me?"

"Oh, yes," she laughed, "I believe you, but to me they're fairy tales
just the same.  It seems so easy for you to do wonderful things.  I wish
you'd do some conjuring for me."

"Oh, there isn't any magic business about me. But I'll try.  What do you
want most?"

She put an elbow on her knee and gazed at the blossom in her fingers.
Her voice, too, fell a note.

"What I think I want most," she said slowly, "is a way out of this."
She waved the blossom vaguely in the direction of the drawing room.
"I'm sick of it all, of the same tiresome people, the same tiresome
dinners, dances, teas.  We're so narrow, so cynical, so deeply enmeshed
in our small pursuits.  I'm weary--desperately weary of myself."

"You?"

"Yes."  And then, with a short, unmirthful laugh, "That's my secret.
You didn't suspect it, did you?"

"Lord! no."  And after a pause, "You're unhappy about him?"

"Cheyne?  Oh, no.  He's the only thing I am happy about.  Have you ever
been really bored, Mr. Wray?"

"Never.  I never even heard the word until I came to New York."

"Have you ever been so tired that your body was numb--so that if you
struck it a blow you were hardly conscious of it, when you felt as if
you could go to sleep and never want to wake up?  Well, that's the
condition of my mind.  It's so tired of the same impressions that it
fails to make note of them; the people I see, the things I do, are all
blurred and colorless like a photograph that has been taken out of
focus.  The only regret I have when I go to sleep is that I have to wake
up again."

"My dear Mrs. Cheyne----"

"Oh, I'm not morbid.  I'm too bored to be morbid even.  I don't think
I'm even unhappy. It takes an effort to be unhappy.  I can't tell you
what the matter is.  One drifts.  I've been drifting a long time.  I
think I have too much money.  I want to _want_ something."

"Don't you ever want anything you can't have?"

She sat upright, and her voice, instead of drawling languidly, came in
the quick accents of discovery. "Yes, I do.  I've just found out.
You've actually created a new interest in life.  Won't you be nice to
me?  Come and see me often and tell me more fairy tales."




                             *CHAPTER VII*

                               *BRAEBANK*


"I can't see, Curtis," said Mrs. Janney, in the smoking room, "why you
chose to ask those vulgar Wrays to Braebank.  It almost seems as if you
were carrying your business relationships too far.  The woman is pretty
enough, and I dare say her easy Western ways will be attractive to the
masculine portion of your guests. But the man is impossible--absolutely
impossible! He does not even use correct English, and his
manners--atrocious!"

The palms of the good lady's hands, as she raised them in her righteous
wrath, were very pink on the inside, like the petals of rosebuds.  They
were sheltered hands, very soft and plump, and their fingers bore many
large and expensive jewels. Mrs. Janney was made up wholly of convex
curves, which neither art nor starvation could deflect.  The roundness
of her face was further accented by concentric curves at brows, mouth,
and chin, which gave the impression of a series of parentheses.  It
would not be stretching the figure too far to add that Mrs. Janney, in
most of their few affiliations, bore a somewhat parenthetical relation
to her husband. Her life, as well as her conversation, was made up of
"asides," to which Curtis Janney was not in the habit of paying the
slightest attention.  Her present remarks, however, seemed to merit a
reply.

"My dear Amelia," he said, tolerantly, from his easy chair, "when we
were first married you used to say that all a man needed to make his way
in New York was a dress suit and a smile.  Wray has both.  Besides, it
is quite necessary to be on good terms with him.  As for his wife, I
have rarely seen a girl who created such an agreeable impression.
Cornelius Bent has taken them up.  He has his reasons for doing so.  So
have I.  I'll trouble you, therefore, to be civil."

He got up and put down his cigar, and Mrs. Janney shrugged her shoulders
into a more pronounced convexity.

"I won't question your motives, Curtis, though, of course, I know you
have them.  But I don't think we can afford to jeopardize our standing
by always taking up new people like the Wrays.  The man is vulgar--the
woman, provincial."

Mr. Janney by this time had taken up the telephone and was ordering the
wagons to the station.

"Why, Gretchen, dear!  You're late.  It's almost train time."  Miss
Janney entered in riding clothes from the terrace, bringing traces of
the fine November weather.  She was a tall, slender girl of the athletic
type, sinuous and strong, with a skin so firm and ruddy from the air
that it glowed crisply as though shot with mica.

"Is it, mother?  Cortland and I had _such_ a wonderful ride.  He is
really quite the nicest man in the world.  Aren't you, Cort?"

"Of course I am," said Bent, laughing, as he entered, "anything Gretchen
says.  That's because I never made love to her, isn't it, Gretchen?"

"Partly.  Love is so silly.  You know, daddy, I've given Cort his
_conge_."

Janney turned testily.  "What nonsense you children talk!"

"I mean it, though, daddy," she went on calmly. "I'm too fond of Cort
ever to think of marrying him.  We settled that still more definitely
to-day. Since you were so inconsiderate, you two, as to neglect to
provide me with a brother, I've adopted Cort."

"Really, Gretchen, you're getting more hopeless every day," sighed her
mother.  "What does Cortland say?"

"I?" laughed Bent.  "What is there left for me to say?  We're hopelessly
friendly, that's all.  I'm afraid there's nothing left but to take to
drink. May I?"

He lifted the decanter of Scotch and poured himself a drink, but Janney,
with a scowl in the direction of his daughter, left the room.

"You mustn't speak so heartlessly, dear," said Mrs. Janney.  "You know
it always makes your father angry.  You must be patient with her,
Cortland."

"I am," said that gentleman, helping himself to a cigarette.  "I'm the
soul of patience, Mrs. Janney.  I've pleaded and begged.  I've even
threatened suicide, but all to no purpose.  There's no satisfaction in
shooting one's self on account of a girl who's going to laugh at your
funeral."

He threw himself hopelessly into a big English chair and sighed
exuberantly, while Gretchen gave him a reproachful look over her
mother's shoulder. "My poor boy, don't give her up," said the lady,
genuinely.  "All will come right in time, I'm sure. You must be sweeter
to him, Gretchen.  You really must."

"I suppose I must," said Gretchen with an air of resignation.  "I'll not
be any more cruel than I can help."

When the good lady left the room they looked at each other for a moment,
and then burst into shameless laughter.

"Poor mother!  She never had a sense of humor. I wouldn't laugh at your
funeral, though, Cort. That was unkind.  You know, I'm afraid father is
very much provoked."

Bent's laughter died, and he gazed at the ash of his cigarette.  "He's
really quite serious about it, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes.  It's an awful nuisance, because, in his way, he has a will as
strong as mine."

Bent smiled.  "I'm glad I'm not in his boots. You're fearfully stubborn,
Gretchen."

"Because I insist on marrying whom I choose?"

"Because you insist on not marrying me."

Miss Janney sank in a chair by the table, fingering the pages of a
magazine.  She said nothing in reply, but in a few moments spoke
carelessly.

"Tell me something about Lawrence Berkely, will you?"

"Larry?  You've only met him once.  Your curiosity is indecent."

"You know he's coming here with the Wrays."

"Not really?  That's going a bit strong.  I don't think I'll stand for
that."

"Oh, yes, you will.  He's quite as good as we are.  He belongs to _the_
Berkelys of Virginia. Mrs. Rumsen knows them."

"That's convincing.  Any one Aunt Caroline knows will need no card to
Saint Peter.  Oh, Larry's all right.  But I warn you not to fall in love
with him."

"That's precisely what I've done," she asserted.

He glanced at her amusedly, but she met his look coolly.

"It's true, Cort.  He's actually the only man I've met since I came out
who really isn't eligible.  I'm so delighted.  Of course, father would
never have permitted it if he'd only known that Mr. Berkely wasn't rich.
He hasn't much use for poor people. Oh, he's well enough off, I suppose,
as Mr. Wray's partner, but then he doesn't own any of that fabulous gold
mine."

"How do you know all these things?"

"He told me.  Besides, he's terribly good looking, and has had something
the matter with his lungs."

"Well, of all the----"

"That's why he's been living in the West.  But he's quite well now.
Isn't it splendid?  I only hope he'll like me.  Don't you think he has
wonderful eyes?"

"I'm sure I never noticed.  See here, Gretchen, you're talking rot.  I'm
going to tell your father."

"Oh, I don't care," airily.  "But if you do, I'll tell Mr. Wray."

"Wray?"

"Yes--that you're in love with his wife."

Miss Janney exploded this bombshell casually while she removed her hat,
watching him carefully meanwhile in the mirror.  If she had planned her
coup, she could not have been more fully rewarded, for Cortland started
up, clutching at the chair arms, his face aghast; but when his eyes met
hers in the mirror he sank back again, laughing uneasily.

"What--who on earth put that silly idea into your head?"

"You--yourself.  I watched you at the Warringtons."

"What nonsense!  I've known Camilla a long time."

"Not so long as you've known me.  And you never looked at me like that."
She laid her hat beside her crop on the table, then turned quickly and
put her hand over his on the chair arm.  "You may trust me, Cortland,
dear.  If I'm going to be your sister, I may as well begin at once.
It's true, isn't it?"

He remained silent a long while, his gaze fixed on the open fire before
him.  Then at last he turned his hand over so that his fingers clasped
hers.  "Yes," he whispered, "it's true, Gretchen.  It's true."

"I'm so sorry, Cort," she murmured.  "I suspected from your letters.  I
wish I might have helped you.  I feel somehow that I am to blame--that
we ever got engaged.  Won't you tell me how it happened that she married
him--instead of you?"

"No, no," he said, rising and walking to the window.  "She--she married
Wray--because--because she loved him, that's all.  I wasn't the man."

Gretchen watched him wistfully, still standing beside the chair he had
vacated, full of the first deep sympathy she had ever known.  Slowly she
walked over and put her hand timidly on his shoulder.

"You'll forgive me, won't you, Cort?  I wouldn't have spoken if I had
known how deeply you felt."  She turned aside with a bitter little
laugh.  "Isn't it queer that life should be so full of complications?
Everybody expects you and me to marry each other--at least, everybody
but ourselves, and we won't because--why is it that we won't?  Chiefly
because everybody expects us to--and because it's so easy.  I'm sure if
there was any reason why we shouldn't marry, I'd love you quite madly.
Instead of which, you're in love with a married woman, and I--I'm
interested in a youth with sad romantic eyes and an impaired breathing
apparatus."

"Gretchen, don't be silly," he said, smiling in spite of himself.

"I'm really serious--you'll see."  She stopped and clutched Bent's arm.
"Tell me, Cort.  He's not married already, is he?"

"You silly child.  Not that I know of.  Berkely is a conscientious sort
of a bird--he wouldn't have let you make love to him----"

"I _didn't_," with dignity, "we talked about the weather mostly."

"That must have been romantic."

"Cort, I'll not speak to you again."  She rushed past him to the window,
her head erect.  Outside was the whirr of an arriving motor.  "How
tiresome. Here come the Billy Havilands," she said, "and they'll want to
be playing 'Auction' at once.  They always do.  As if there was nothing
but 'Bridge' in the world!"  She sniffed.  "I wish we were going to be
fewer in number.  Just you and I and----"

"And Larry?"

"Yes--and Mrs. Wray," she put in viciously.

Curtis Janney was already in the big stair hall to welcome the arrivals.

"Billy--Dorothy--welcome!  Of course you had to bring your buzz-wagon.
I suppose I'll be driven to build a garage some day--but it will be well
down by the East Lodge.  Do you expect to follow in that thing?  Rita!
Awfully glad.  Your hunter came over last night.  He looks fit as a
fiddle. Aren't you cold?  Gretchen, dear, ring for tea."

Noiseless maids and men-servants appeared, appropriated wraps and hand
baggage, and departed.

"We timed it nicely," said Haviland, looking at his watch.  "Forty-seven
from the ferry.  We passed your wagons a moment ago.  Gretchen, who's
the red-haired girl with the Rumsens?"

"_Et tu, Brute_?  That's Mrs. Wray.  None of us has a chance when she's
around.  Here they are now."

The two station wagons drew up at the terrace, and the guests
dismounted.  Mr. and Mrs. Rumsen with the Wrays in the station wagon,
and the Baroness Charny, the Warringtons, Jack Perot, and Lawrence
Berkely in the 'bus.

"Well, Worthy!  Got here after all!  Caroline, Mrs. Wray, would you like
to go right up or will you wait for tea?  Wray, there's something
stronger just inside.  Show him, won't you, Billy?"

Wray entered the big hall with a renewed appreciation of the utility of
wealth.  The houses in New York which he had seen were, of course, built
upon a more moderate scale.  He had still to discover that the men of
wealth were learning to make their week-ends out of town longer, and
that the real home-life of many of them had been transferred to the
country, where broad acres and limitless means enabled them to gratify
their tastes in developing great estates which would hand down their
names in the architectural history of the country when their city houses
should be overwhelmed and lost in the march of commerce.  Curtis Janney,
for all his great responsibilities, was an open-air man, and he took a
real delight in his great Tudor house and stables.  The wide entrance
hall which so impressed Jeff was designed in the ripe Palladian manner
which distinguished the later work of the great Inigo Jones.  This lofty
room was the keynote of the building--a double cube in shape, the
staircase which led from the centre opposite the door ornate in a
character purely classic--the doorways to the other rooms on the same
floor masterful in structural arrangement and elegant in their grace and
simplicity.  It almost seemed as though the room had been designed as a
framework for the two wonderful Van Dykes which were placed at each side
of the stairway.

Jeff smiled as he walked into the smoking room--the smile of possession.
He realized, as never before, that taste, elegance, style, were things
which could be bought with money, as one would buy stock or a piece of
real estate.  The only difference between Curtis Janney and himself was
that his host had an ancestor or two--while Jeff had none.

Miss Janney had quietly and cleverly appropriated Lawrence Berkely and
was already on her way to the conservatory.  Jack Perot, who painted the
portraits of fashionable ladies, had taken the Baroness to the Long
Room, where the English pictures were hung.  Camilla, after a few polite
comments on the dignity of the house, sat a little aside in silence.
Cortland Bent, after a glance toward the door through which Miss Janney
had vanished, dropped into the vacant chair beside her.

"I'm so glad to see you," she said genuinely. "You know the magnificence
is rather bewildering."  She paused and lowered her voice.  "It seems as
if I hadn't seen you for ages."

"Yes," he murmured.  "I'm expecting wings any day now.  I'm almost too
good to be true."

"You're an angel," she smiled.  "I want you to be good, and I'm sure I
want you to be true.  And yet"--she paused--"this seems the only case in
the world where to be true is to be bad."

"You can't make the sun stop shining."

"I don't think I want it to stop shining altogether. You see, I'm
selfish.  I want it under a cloud, that's all."

There was a pause--significant to them both.

"I am trying, Camilla.  I am doing my best. You appreciate that?"

"Yes, but it shouldn't be so hard.  I don't think it would be hard for
me in your place!"

His eyes questioned.

"Miss Janney--she is adorable."  She looked over the rim of her cup at
him as she finished her tea.  "My dear Cort," she laughed, as she handed
it to him, "the best I can say for you is that you have the worst taste
in the world.  I'm really in love with her myself.  I can't see what you
could have been thinking of----"

"Any more than _I_ can see what _you_ were thinking of."

There was a refuge from the danger toward which she felt herself
drifting, and she took it, addressing her nearest neighbor.

"Mrs. Cheyne, don't you think men have abominable taste?"

"Oh, yes, abominable," laughed the lady.  "Ugh! I hate mustaches, too,
don't you?"

Camilla turned a shade rosier, but her discomfiture was lost in the
laughter of those who remembered that Cheyne had worn a beard.

"You know I didn't mean just that," explained Camilla.  "I meant their
appreciation of women--their sense of the esthetic----"

"Anesthetic, Mrs. Wray.  That's the only word for a man's perceptions.
A French frock, a smart hat, a little deft color, and the plainest of us
is a match for the gayest Lothario.  They're only bipeds, instincts on
legs----"

"Oh, I say now, Rita," laughed Bent.

"We can't stand for that, Mrs. Cheyne," put in their host.  "I suppose
you'd think me ungallant if I asked you what kind of instincts women
were."

"Instincts with wings," she purred, "angels by intuition, rhapsodists by
occupation, and sirens by inheritance.  We're not in the least afraid of
you, Mr. Janney."

"I should think not.  For my part, if I knew that one of you was camping
on my trail, I'd give in at once."

"I'm so glad.  It's a pet theory of mine that when a woman really sets
her cap for a man he had better give up at once, for she will win
him--fortune favoring--in the end.  Don't you agree, Mrs. Wray?"

"I've never thought about it, Mrs. Cheyne," said Camilla slowly.  "By
fortune you mean propinquity?"

"Oh, yes--and other things----" laughingly. "For instance, if I had
fallen in love with a man I shouldn't stop to consider.  If he was
another woman's husband--say _your_ husband, Mrs. Wray--that would only
add a new element of interest. The more difficult an undertaking, the
greater satisfaction in the achievement."

Camilla looked at her steadily for a moment.  "I've never thought that
any man ought to be dignified by such extraordinary effort. A husband so
easily won away is not worth keeping."

The two women had only met once before.  They both smiled, sweetly
tolerant, their weapons politely sheathed.  Only Cortland Bent, who knew
the hearts of both, sensed the difference between them.

"You're very flattering, Rita," he broke in, "especially to the bipeds.
You've carefully deprived us of every attribute but legs.  But we still
have those--and can run."

"But you don't," laughed Mrs. Cheyne. "That's just the point.  You like
the game--all of you.  Even your legs aren't proof against flattery."

"Stop, Rita," put in Betty Haviland.  "You're letting out all the
secrets of the craft."

"Come, Camilla," said Cortland, rising, "wouldn't you like to see the
horses and dogs?  It's not nearly dark yet."

"Oh, yes," she cried gladly.  And then to her host, "What am I to
expect, Mr. Janney, silver feed troughs and sterilized water?"

"Oh, no," said their host, "not yet.  But they're worth it."

The pair made their way through the library and a small corridor which
led to the south portico.

"How do you like my cousin Rita?" Bent asked when they were alone
outside.

"Is she your cousin?"

"Through my mother--the Davidges.  Quite wonderful, eh?"

"I don't like her.  You don't mind my saying so, do you?"

"Not in the least.  She's not your sort, Camilla. But then nobody ever
takes Rita seriously.  She doesn't want them to.  She's a spoiled
darling. Everybody pets her.  That bored kind of cleverness is
effective--but everybody knows she doesn't mean half she says."

"I'd be sorry to think she meant anything she says," severely.

Bent laughed.  "I'm afraid you're too sincere for my crowd, Camilla."

"Who is Mr. Cheyne?" she asked suddenly.

"A perfectly amiable person with a bald head and a passion for
domesticity and music, both of which Rita affects to despise."

"Why did she marry him then?"

"Nobody knows.  It was one of the marriages that weren't made in Heaven,
that's all."

"Few marriages are, but they're none the less binding because of that."

"Yes, I know," he said soberly.

She recognized the minor note and turned the subject quickly.

"What a heavenly spot!  These are the stables, of course.  And the
buildings beyond?"

"The kennels.  Mr. Janney has his own pack--corking hounds.  They've
been breeding this strain a long while in England.  I suppose they're as
good as any in the world."

"I'm wild to see them."

The head groom met them at the door of the carriage house and showed
them through.  The much despised touring car of the Havilands occupied a
negligible part of the great floor.  The coach, brake, carryall, station
wagons, victoria, runabouts, and brake-carts--all in royal blue with
primrose running-gear--looked down with an old-fashioned dignity and
disapprobation on this product of a new civilization.  The paneled walls
of the room were covered with sporting prints, and the trophy room, with
its cabinets of cups and ribbons, bore eloquent testimony to Curtis
Janney's success at horse shows in every large city of the country. In
the stables Camilla lost all sense of restraint.  A stable had never
meant anything like this.  The cement floors were spotless, and the long
line of stalls of polished wood with brass newels and fittings shone
like the silver in the drawing room.  The mats and blankets were of
blue, and each bore the monogram of the owner in yellow.

"These are the coach and carriage horses, Camilla," Bent explained.

"Yes, ma'am," put in the groom.  "The hunters are here," and he led the
way to the box stalls.

"Where is Mackinaw?  Mr. Janney promised him to me for to-morrow."

"Oh, Mackinaw is right here, ma'am.  And a fine bit of flesh he is."  He
went in and threw off the blanket, while Camilla followed.  "Not a
blemish. He'll take his four rails like they was two.  Just give him his
head, and you won't be far off when they kill."

"Oh, what a darling!  I'm wild to get on him.  Is he gentle?"

She patted him on the neck, and he nosed her pocket for sugar.  One by
one she saw them all, and they reached the kennels in time for the
evening meal.

"Oh, well," she sighed as they turned back toward the house, "I'm almost
reconciled to riches.  One could live in a place like this and forget
there was anything else in the world."

"Yes, perhaps some people might," he said significantly.  "I couldn't,
even if I wanted to.  The only real joy in life is the memory of
Saguache Peak at sunset."

"Sunsets pass--they're symbols of the brevity of things beautiful----"

"But the night is long," he murmured.  "So long, and so dark."




                             *CHAPTER VIII*

                              *THE BRUSH*


Jeff Wray was learning many things. The arrival of Lawrence Berkely on
the scene had at first seemed rather alarming. Several wires in cipher
before Larry reached New York had apprised Jeff of an uncertain state of
mind in members of the directorate of the Denver and Western Railroad
Company.  Collins, Hardy, and even Jim Noakes had been approached by
representatives of the Chicago and Utah with flattering offers for their
interests in the D. & W., and Berkely reported them on the horns of a
dilemma. Collins and Hardy were big owners of land which lay along the
trunk line and were dependent on that company for all facilities for
moving their wheat and other crops.  It had not always been easy to get
cars to haul their stuff to market, and this fall they only got their
hay and potatoes in by a dispensation from the men higher up.  Noakes,
as Jeff well knew, owned stock in the through line, but the showing of
the Saguache Mountain Development Company for the year had been so
strong that he had felt sure his associates would see the importance of
keeping their interests intact, temporizing, where they could, with the
Denver crowd, who had it in their power to threaten his connections at
Saguache.

Mulrennan was wiring Jeff, too--copiously.  There was an election
pending in Kinney, and the Denver crowd had advanced a candidate for
judge in opposition to the party with which Pete was affiliated.  Other
reports both in New York and from the West indicated a strong pressure
from the East on the officers of the D. & W.  Berkely viewed all these
indications of a concerted movement against Jeff's railroad with
increasing dismay and lost no time in giving him his opinion as to the
possible outcome of the raid.

But Jeff apparently was losing no sleep over the situation.  He was
fully aware that the whole movement had originated in New York, and that
Cornelius Bent and his crowd were back of it.  He knew, too, that the
Amalgamated Reduction Company wanted his new smelter.  Long ago he had
foreseen this possibility and had laid his own plans accordingly.  The
Denver and Saguache was his.  With Noakes, Collins, and Hardy, he had a
control of the Denver and Western, but their possible defection, which
he had also foreseen, had made other plans necessary.  Three months
before he came East he had unobtrusively secured through other persons a
right of way from Saguache to Pueblo, a distance of one hundred and
twenty miles.  The line of this survey was well to the southward and
would open up a country occupied only by small settlers under the
Homestead laws.  He had turned the organization of the Development
Company loose for two months on that vast tract of land, and had, at a
reasonably small expense, secured by purchase or long-time options the
most valuable land along his new line.  His engineers were Germans,
imported for the work, who had no affiliations with other roads, and his
plans had so far worked out to a T.  He had also worked out (on paper)
an irrigation scheme for the whole proposition.

At Pueblo the new road would connect with the Denver and California, a
line which had no connection with the Chicago and Utah, and which had
even been recently engaged in a rate war with the other roads to the
coast.  Its officers were friendly, and Wray's plans had all been worked
out in their confidence and with their approval.  Indeed, a good part of
his backing had been furnished by capitalists in San Francisco.

Jeff felt sure that the first move to capture the D. & W. was only a
bluff, and in his conferences with General Bent, Janney, and McIntyre,
had played a waiting game.  The "Daisy" was now a producer--not a
producer like the "Lone Tree"--but it was paying, and the "Comet," a new
prospect that had been opened farther south, was doing a business of a
hundred to the ton.  His stamps were working night and day, and the
smelter was doing its share in Wray's triumphant progress.  All his
other plans were working out, and the longer he could wait the more
formidable he could make himself as an adversary.  He knew that the crux
of the situation was the ambition of the Amalgamated Reduction Company.
They controlled every smelting concern in three states, and Wray's big
plant was a thorn in their side.  By waiting, Jeff hoped that he could
make them show their hands, so he made no attempt to force an issue,
being content to play the part they themselves had assigned him. Their
hospitality, his welcome into their exclusive set, his use of their
clubs (to two of which he had been proposed for membership), the
business associations they were planning for him, did little to convince
Jeff of the sincerity of their attentions.  But he acted the dupe with a
good grace, with one eye to windward, greatly amused at their
friendliness, which, while it failed to flatter, gave him an increasing
sense of the importance of his mission. General Bent had intimated that
within a week or so he would be in a position to make a definite
proposition for his railroad, which, of course, meant the absorption of
Wray's plant into the Trust. Financially, there were great possibilities
in a friendly association with these men.

They were closely in touch with No. -- Broadway and, if they chose,
could point the way to power such as he had never dreamed of.  But in
his heart he mistrusted them.  He thought of Mrs. Rumsen's words of
warning, and he knew that what she said was true.  They would not spare
him if he offered them a chance which would give them a command of the
situation.  Well, they hadn't command of it yet, and he knew he held
some cards which they had never seen.  If they continued to weave their
web as they had begun it, there would still be time to side-step.

Meanwhile, he gave himself up to a thorough enjoyment of the situation.
There was nothing he liked better than a fight, and the fact that his
adversaries were formidable lent a zest to the situation.  He reassured
Larry, sent a lot of wires to Mulrennan, took a few successful flyers in
the stock market (which went to show that his luck had not yet turned),
and spent his leisure moments in a riding school uptown going over the
jumps with Camilla.

Curtis Janney's dinner table held nothing in common with General Bent's.
The viands were well cooked but not heavy; the wines of a lighter
variety, dry, for the most part, and sparkling; the service deft and
dignified but not austere.  The table decorations were not made up of
set-pieces from the florists', but came from Janney's own conservatories
and were more in the way of colored embroideries against the damask
cloth.  General conversation was, therefore, continuous, and every
person at this table could see and be seen by every other.  The
formality of the city seemed to be banished by common consent, and
Camilla, who went in with Cortland Bent (a mischievous dispensation of
Miss Janney), felt very much at home in the frank, friendly atmosphere.
Almost all the conversation, she discovered, was of the "horsey"
variety, at least at Camilla's end of the table, where their host
presided, and, as she had never ridden to hounds before, she seized the
opportunity to acquaint herself with the interesting details of the
morning which awaited her.

The Sunnybrook Hunt Club, she learned, was only a mile away, but on
certain days the Braebank hounds were used and members of the Hunt Club
living in the vicinity added their numbers to the field.  There were
plenty of foxes, Mr. Janney assured her, and to-morrow they were to draw
a cover over toward the Chelten Hills.  Mrs. Cheyne, she heard, was
thought to be the best horsewoman in the county.  Her own country-place
was but five miles away, and, in spite of her boasted love of ease, she
was to be found at every Meet in the season, no matter how early the
hour.  To-morrow was to be one of the big days of the year, Mr. Janney
informed Camilla, and all the farmers over whose fields they hunted were
invited to lunch after the Meet, in the Long Gallery.

So when, in the early morning, after a light breakfast, Mr. Janney's
guests met on the terrace, it was with a feeling of intense interest and
excitement that Camilla drew on her gloves and joined them. Of the men,
Curtis Janney, Worthington Rumsen, and Billy Haviland wore the pink
coats with gray facings of Sunnybrook, while their host wore in addition
the velvet cap which distinguished him as Master of the Hounds.  The
hounds were already loose on the great lawn, while the Huntsman and
Whippers-in rode among them.  The sun had not yet risen, and the heavy
frost which lay upon the lawns caught the chill greenish opalescent
tints of the dawn. Mrs. Cheyne was already in the saddle, her hunter, a
lean, rangy boy, pirouetting and mouthing his bits, eager to be off.
The Baroness Charny, dainty and very modish in a dark green habit and
silk hat, was chatting gaily with Larry Berkely while a groom adjusted
her stirrup-leather.  Mrs. Haviland, Wray, Perot, and her host were
waiting for their horses, which the men were bringing up from the
stables.  Curtis Janney came forward gaily when Camilla appeared.

"We're all here, Mrs. Wray," he greeted her. "The others will meet us at
the Chelten Crossroads.  Your horse is ready," and then, with a glance
at her habit, "You're riding across, I believe?"

She nodded.  "What a heavenly morning!"

"The conditions are perfect.  This white frost will soften at sun-up.
We'll have a fine run.  Won't you let me help you mount?"

They were all in the saddle in a few moments and, walking their horses,
with the Huntsman and hounds in the lead, were soon on their way past
the big entrance gates.  Camilla saw Jeff draw his horse alongside that
of Mrs. Cheyne and realized that the few days during which Lawrence
Berkely had been in the city had done much for her husband's appearance.
She saw the look and heard the laugh with which Mrs. Cheyne greeted her
husband and experienced, in spite of herself, a sense of annoyance that
Jeff continually showed a preference for her company to that of any of
the other women of the party.  She knew that in her heart it made no
difference to her into whose hands Jeff entrusted himself.  Mrs.
Cheyne's languid air of patronage had provoked her, and her pride
rebelled at the thought of any slight, however thoughtless, at the hands
of her husband.  But as Cortland Bent came alongside of her, she
realized that the friendly relations of her husband and his feminine
partner might progress far on extravagantly sentimental lines and still
provide no just cause for complaint.

If Mrs. Cheyne had any mental reservations, her graceful back gave no
sign of them.  She sat her horse squarely, even a little stiffly, which
brought into contrast the easy, rather slouchy seat which Jeff had
learned on the plains.  But Wray was in his element.  On a horse, at
least, he felt himself the equal of any one in the party and need ask no
favors or give any.  He examined Mrs. Cheyne's costume curiously.  Her
long coat was a mere subterfuge, for beneath it she wore white breeches
like his own and patent leather boots.  Her hair was done in a compact
mass on the back of her head, and her hat was held in place by a strong
elastic band.  The shoulders of her coat were square and her manner
easy.  He recalled the flowing feminine lines of her costume at dinner
the night before, and it seemed difficult to appreciate that she was the
same person with whom he had talked so late in the smoking room.

"Am I a freak?" she asked amiably, "or is there a hiatus somewhere?  I
dressed in a tearing hurry--without a maid."

"Oh, no.  Only you're another kind of a person--on the back of a horse."

"Am I?  How?"

"Last night you were all woman.  You and I are making friends pretty
fast, but I was a little afraid of you."

"Why?"

"You're different at night, so sleepy and handsome, like a rattler in
the sun, the kind you hate to wake up but must, to see how far he'll
strike."

She laughed.  "I don't know whether I like that or not.  And yet I think
I do.  How am I different to-day?"

"To-day you're only part woman.  The rest of you is just kid.  If it
wasn't for that knot of hair I'd take you for a boy--a very nice,
good-looking boy."

She looked up at him mischievously.  "You know you have a faculty of
saying unpleasant things very pleasantly.  I'm glad I look youthful.  My
only horror is of growing old.  I don't think I like the idea of your
thinking me anything unfeminine."

He glanced frankly at her protruding knee.  "I don't.  Most of you is
woman all right--but you don't scare me half as much this morning."

"Why should you be scared?  You haven't struck me as being a man who
could be scared at anything."

"Not out here, but inside--in the drawing room--you've got me at a
disadvantage.  I'm new to soft speeches, low lights, and the way you
Eastern women dress.  There's too much glamor.  I never know whether you
mean what you say or whether it's all just a game--and I'm _It_."

She threw back her head and laughed with a full throat.

"You dear, delicious, impossible creature!  Don't you know that the
world is a tangle of illusions, and that you and I and everybody else
were made to help keep them tangled?  Nobody ever means what he says.
Half of the joy in life consists in making people think you different
from what you are."

"Which are you?  The kid on the horse or the woman--back there--last
night?"

"Do you think I'll tell you?"

"No, I suppose not.  And it wouldn't help me much if you're going to lie
about it--I mean," he corrected, "if you're trying to keep me guessing."

"My poor, deluded friend, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.  So
what's the use.  For the present," she added defiantly, "I'm the kid on
the horse."

"And I guess I'm _It_, all right," he laughed.

As they approached Chelten Hills they made out at the cross-roads a
number of figures on horseback. The sun, a pale madder ball, had
suddenly sprung from behind the hills and painted with its rosy hues the
streaks of mist which hung in the valleys below them.  As its shadows
deepened and its glow turned from pink to orange, the figures at the
cross-roads stood out in silhouette against the frosty meadows beyond.
There were three women and at least a dozen men, most of them wearing
the club colors, which took on added brilliancy as the sun emerged from
behind the distant hills.  A cloud of vapor rose from the flanks of the
horses.  There was much "hallo-ing" and waving of riding crops as the
Huntsman and his hounds rode into their midst and the two parties met.
A brief consultation, and the hounds were sent down a narrow lane and
across a wooden bridge toward a patch of woods which darkened the
hillside half a mile away.

"We'll draw that cover first," said Curtis Janney. "Perhaps we can coax
the old Chelten Fox to come out to-day."  It was the name they had given
to an old quarry of theirs, the elusive victor in half a dozen runs in
the last few years.

Cortland Bent had refused to relinquish his post beside Camilla.  There
seemed no reason why he should, since Gretchen had so completely
appropriated Larry, and Jeff, Mrs. Cheyne.

"Be careful, Camilla," he was saying.  "You're new at this game, and the
going is none too safe."

But Camilla only smiled.  She looked forward at Mrs. Cheyne's intolerant
back, and there was a joyous flash in her eyes like the one he
remembered two years ago when she led the chase of a coyote, which she
ran down and roped unaided.  She leaned forward gaily and patted her
horse's neck.

"We understand each other, don't we, Mackinaw?"

And then, as though to express her emancipation from all earthly
barriers, she gave her horse his head in the pasture and followed a
party which had scorned the open gate.  Mackinaw took the three rails
like a bird and shook his head viciously when Camilla restrained him.
Cortland followed her, smiling, and in a moment they had all stopped at
the foot of the hill, while the hounds went forward into the cover.

Janney had planned well.  They waited a while, chatting among
themselves, and then suddenly the hounds gave tongue.  At the farther
end of the cover, taking a diagonal course across an old cornfield up
the hill, the old fox emerged, while the hounds, getting the scent,
followed hot-foot after him.

"Tally-ho!" was the cry from one of the whips, and it echoed again and
again the length of the field. In a second they were off, Curtis Janney
in the lead, roaring some instructions which nobody understood. Camilla,
overanxious, cleared the brook at a bound and won her way among the
leaders.  Gretchen Janney and Mrs. Cheyne, their horses well in hand,
were a little to the left, following the Master, whose knowledge of the
lay of the land foresaw that the run would follow the ridge which
farther on turned to the eastward.  Camilla only knew that she must ride
straight, and went forward up the hill toward the line of bushes around
which the last hound had disappeared.  Bent thundered after her,
watching her anxiously as she took the fence at the top of the hill--a
tall one--and landed safely in the stubble beyond.

"Pull up a little, Camilla!" he shouted.  "You'll blow him if you don't.
This may last all morning."

"I--I can't!" she cried.  "He's pulling me. He doesn't want to stop, and
neither do I."

"It's the twenty pounds of under weight--but you'd better use your
curb."

As they cleared the bushes they "viewed" again from a distance the
hounds running in a straight line, skirting a pasture at the edge of a
wood half a mile away.  The field below to their left was now a thin
line of single horsemen or groups of twos and threes. Behind Bent were
Billy Haviland and the Baroness. Down the hill they went, more carefully
this time, then up again over rocky ground dotted with pitfalls of ice
and snow which made the going hazardous. Janney's crowd below on the
level meadows was forging ahead, but when Camilla reached the top of the
next hill she saw that, instead of surging toward the river, the hounds
were far away to the right in open country and going very fast.  They
reached the road from the meadow just as Curtis Janney, closely followed
by Gretchen and Mrs. Cheyne, Larry, and Jeff, came riding into the open.

"Have you 'viewed'?"

Cortland Bent pointed with his crop, and they all saw the pack making
for the woods and the trees which lined the creek in the hollow beyond.
It was a wide stretch of open country made up of half a dozen fields and
fences.  The short, sharp cry of the hounds as they sighted the fox was
music to Camilla, but the roar of the wind in her ears and the thunder
of the horses' hoofs were sweeter.  It was a race for the creek.  The
Master, on his big thoroughbred, was three lengths in the lead, but
Jeff, Mrs. Cheyne, and Camilla, just behind him, were taking their jumps
together.

At the third fence, for some reason, Mackinaw refused, and, scarcely
knowing how it had happened, Camilla slid forward over his ears to the
ground. She was a little stunned, but managed to keep her hold on the
reins, and before Cortland Bent could dismount she was on her feet
again, her cheeks a little pale, but in nowise injured.

"Are you hurt, Camilla?"

"No.  Help me up quickly, Cort."  She had seen Jeff and Mrs. Cheyne draw
rein a moment on the other side of the fence, but, when she rose, ride
on together.  Jeff shouted something to her, but she could not hear it.

"I didn't give him his head," Camilla stammered. "I'll know better now."

"For God's sake, be careful," whispered Bent.

If she heard him she gave no sign of it, for, with her face pale and her
lips compressed, she made a wide turn, and, before the rest of the field
came up, she had put Mackinaw at the jump again, giving him his head and
the crop on his flank just before he rose to it.  The frightened animal
cleared the rails with two feet to spare and a good six feet on the
farther side, and, when Jeff turned at the bank of the creek to look, he
saw Mackinaw nobly clearing the last fence that remained between them.

Camilla, her color coming slowly back, kept her eyes fixed on the smart
silk hat of Mrs. Cheyne. The memory of Mrs. Cheyne's smile infuriated
her. Her manner was so superior, her equipment so immaculate, her seat
such a fine pattern of English horsemanship.  The run was to be long,
they said. Perhaps there would still be time to show that she could
ride--as the boys in the West rode, for every inch--for every pound.

Through the ford she dashed, with Cortland close at her heels, the water
deluging them both, up the bank and over the rise of the hill, toward a
patch of bushes where the fox doubled and went straight with the wind
across the valley for the hills.  The going was rougher here--boulders,
stone walls, and ploughed fields.  Camilla cut across the angle and in a
moment was riding beside her husband and Mrs. Cheyne, who seemed to be
setting the pace.

"Are you all right?" Jeff asked.  But she only smiled at him and touched
Mackinaw with her heel.  She was riding confidently now, sure of herself
and surer of her horse.  They understood each other, and Mackinaw
responded nobly, for when he found his place by the side of Rita
Cheyne's bay mare he sensed the will of his rider that here was the
horse that he must outstay.  The pace was terrific, and once or twice
Camilla felt the eyes of the other woman upon her, but she rode
joyously, grimly, looking neither to left nor right, as she realized
that Mrs. Cheyne's mount was tiring and that Mackinaw seemed to be
gaining strength at every jump.

The old Chelten Fox gained immortality that day. Twice the foremost
hounds were snapping at his very heels, when, from some hidden source of
energy, he drew another store and ran away from them, doubling through
the brush and throwing them off the scent, which they recovered only
when he had put a safe distance between them.  Camilla had lost her hat,
her hair had fallen about her shoulders, and a thorn had gashed her
cheek.  The pace was telling on Mackinaw, whose stride was not so long
or his jumps so powerful, but Mrs. Cheyne still rode beside her, her
face a little paler than before, but her seat as firm--her hands as
light as ever.  If there were any other riders near them, both women
were oblivious, seeing nothing but the blur of the flying turf beneath
them, hearing nothing but the sharp note of the hounds in front, which
told that the chase was nearly ended.

Before them was a lane with two fences of four rails, an "in and out,"
with a low "take off" from the meadow.  Camilla rose in her stirrups to
look and saw that Mrs. Cheyne had drawn rein.  It was a jump which would
tax the mettle of fresher animals.  With a smile on her face which might
have been a counterfeit of the one Mrs. Cheyne had worn earlier in the
morning, Camilla turned in her saddle, catching the eye of her
companion, and pointed with her crop straight before her to where the
hounds had "killed" in the meadow just beyond, then set Mackinaw for the
highest panel she could find.

"Come on, Mrs. Cheyne!" she cried hoarsely. "Come on!"

Mackinaw breasted the fence and reached the road--a pause of a second
until Camilla's spurs sank into his flanks, when, mad with pain, he
leaped forward into the air, just clearing the other fence and the ditch
that lay on the farther side.  Camilla pulled up sharply as the Huntsman
dismounted and made his way among the dogs.  Turning, she saw Mrs.
Cheyne's horse rise awkwardly from the lane and go crashing through the
fence, breaking the top rail and landing in the ditch.  Its rider,
thrown forward out of the saddle, landed heavily and then rolled to one
side and lay quiet.

[Illustration: "Turning, she saw Mrs. Cheyne's horse go crashing through
the fence."]

With a quick cry of dismay, Camilla dismounted, conscience-stricken, and
ran to her fallen foe, just as the others rode up and caught the
frightened horse.

"Dear Mrs. Cheyne," she heard herself saying, "I'm so sorry.  Are you
really badly hurt?"  But the only reply she got was a feeble shake of
the head.  Curtis Janney brought out a brandy flask, and, after a sip or
two, Mrs. Cheyne revived and looked about her.

"I'm all here, I think," she said.  "That was a bad cropper--in my own
barnyard, too--the Brush must be yours, Mrs. Wray.  Give me a cigarette,
somebody."




                              *CHAPTER IX*

                              *THE SHADOW*


Mrs. Cheyne's farmhands and stablemen came running and took the horses
of those who dismounted; and Mrs. Cheyne, after examining herself to see
that no bones were broken, led the way, stiffly but without assistance,
to the house.  Camilla, still a little bewildered, saw Mackinaw led off
to the stable for a rub-down. The Master of the Hounds was the first to
congratulate her.

"Here is your Brush, Mrs. Wray.  You've filled every woman's heart with
envy.  To be in at the death of the old Chelten Fox is an achievement.
You had a fall.  Are you injured?"

"I believe not," she said.  "Mackinaw is a darling.  I hope he's sound?"
she inquired anxiously.

"As a bell," he said generously.  "He's got the heart of an ox.  You
know"--he laughed and whispered--"I bought him from Mrs. Cheyne, and
to-day you've vindicated me."

Others came up, men of the Hunt Club, and asked to be presented, and
Camilla, enjoying her triumph, followed the party to the house.

Mrs. Cheyne's house differed in character from that of the Janneys.  It
was snugly built in a pocket of the hills, facing to the south.  The
original building, square and massive, dated from the early eighteenth
century, but two symmetrical wings at the sides had greatly increased
its original size. Large pillars and a portico gave the graceful lines
which the addition demanded.  The wide stair hall which ran from front
to back had not been altered, and the furniture and hangings rigidly
preserved the ancient atmosphere.

The surprised butler and his assistant hurriedly prepared hot Scotches
and toddy, and the halls and large rooms on the lower floor were soon
filled with the swaggering company--all talking at once, each with his
tale of luck or misfortune.

It was not until Camilla was gratefully enthroned in a big chair by the
open fireplace that Cortland Bent found a chance to speak to her.

"What possessed you, Camilla?  You rode like a demon.  You've dragged
poor Rita's pride in the mire.  Riding is her long suit.  She's not used
to yielding her laurels as she did to-day.  I fancy she's not at all
happy about it."

"Why?" asked Camilla, wonderingly.

"You don't know Rita as I do.  She runs things out here pretty much in
her own way."  He chuckled quietly.  "Good Lord, but you did put it over
her."

"I'm sorry if she feels badly about it," she put in mendaciously.

"There's nothing to be sorry about.  You won out against odds on a horse
she'd thrown into the discard.  That doesn't make her feel any sweeter.
She's a queer one.  There's no telling how she'll take things.  But she
doesn't like being the under dog, and she won't forget this soon."

"Neither will I," said Camilla, smiling to herself. "She scored one on
me yesterday, but I fancy our accounts are about even."

"Yes, they are.  I suppose there's no use warning you."

"No, there isn't, Cort.  I fancy I'll be able to look out for myself."

He examined her keenly and realized that she was looking at Jeff, who
stood with some men at the end of the room toasting their hostess.  He
seemed to have forgotten Camilla's existence. In the field before they
came into the house Jeff had spoken to her, and when Janney had given
Camilla the Brush, Jeff had congratulated her noisily and with the
heartiness and enthusiasm he always showed over things which reflected
credit on himself.  In their private life Jeff still stood a little in
awe of Camilla.  He realized that his many deficiencies put him at a
disadvantage with a woman of her stamp, and, no matter what he felt, he
had never asked more of her in the way of companionship than she had
been willing to give him ungrudgingly; he was tolerant of her literary
moods, her music, her love of pictures, and the many things he could not
understand.  She was the only cultured woman he had ever known, and his
marriage had done little to change his way of thinking of her. Camilla
had not meant to abide forever in the shrine in which Jeff had enthroned
her.

In the earlier days of their married life she had been willing to sit
enshrined because it had been the easiest way to conceal the actual
state of her own mind; because it had come to be a habit with her--and
with him to behold her there.  Their pilgrimage to New York had made a
difference. It was not easy for Camilla to define it just yet. He was a
little easier in his ways with her, regarded her inaccessibility a
little less seriously, and questioned by his demeanor rather than by any
spoken words matters which had long been taken for granted by them both.
He had made no overt declaration of independence and, in his way, gave
her opinions the same respect he had always given them.  The difference,
if anything, had been in the different way in which they viewed from the
very same angle the great world of affairs.  Men, as Jeff had always
known, were much the same all the world over, but, curiously enough, he
had never seen fit to apply any rule to its women.  It was flattery,
indeed, for him to have believed for so long that, because Camilla was
cultured, all cultured women must be like Camilla.  His wife realized
that Jeff's discovery of Mrs. Cheyne was requiring a readjustment of all
his early ideas.  And so, while she spoke lightly of Mrs. Cheyne to
Cortland Bent, in her heart she was aware that if the lady took it into
her pretty head to use Jeff as a weapon she might herself be put upon
the defensive.

It seemed as though Cortland had an intuition of what was passing in her
mind.

"If there's any way in which I can be of service," he ventured.

"Oh, yes, Cort," she laughed.  "I'll call on you. The only thing I ask
of you now is--not to fall in love with Mrs. Cheyne."

"Rita?  I'd as soon think of falling in love with a kaleidoscope.
Besides----"

But she laid restraining fingers on his arm.

"Tell me about Gretchen," she interrupted quickly.

"There's nothing to tell, except," he said with a sigh, "that she's
quite gone on Larry."

"You can't mean it?"

"Really--she told me so."

Camilla glanced toward the hall where the two young people were sitting
in the big haircloth sofa engaged in a harmless investigation of the
science of palmistry.

Camilla laughed.  "It really looks so, doesn't it? I am sorry, though.
I had begun to look on Miss Janney as one of the solutions of our
difficulty."

"There isn't any solution of it--not that way--you must take my word for
it.  Gretchen and I understand each other perfectly.  If I can do
anything to help Lawrence Berkely with her, I'll do it."

"Oh, you're quite hopeless, Cort," she sighed, "and I have no patience
with Larry.  I can't see why he doesn't mind his own business."

Bent glanced at the young couple in the hall. "He seems to me to be
doing _that_ tolerably well."  He leaned forward so that his tone,
though lowered, could be heard distinctly.

"There is another solution.  Perhaps you had not thought of it."  She
turned her head quickly and searched his face for a meaning.  For reply
he coolly turned his gaze in the direction of Jeff and Mrs. Cheyne, who
had withdrawn into an embrasure of one of the windows.

"A solution----" she stammered.

"Yes, a way out--for both of us."

"You mean Jeff--and Mrs. Cheyne?" she whispered.

"I do."

The poison of his suggestion flowed slowly through her mind, like a drug
which stimulates and stupefies at the same time.

"You mean that I should allow Jeff--that I should connive in his----"
She stopped, horror-stricken.  "Oh, Cort, that was unworthy of you," she
whispered.

"I mean it.  They're well met--those two," he finished viciously.

Camilla held up her fingers pleadingly.  "Don't speak.  I forbid you."
And, rising, she took up her gloves and crop from the table.  "Besides,"
she said more lightly, "I have a suspicion that you are trying to stir
up a tempest in a teapot."

"Do you mean you haven't noticed?" he insisted. "At my father's?  At the
Warringtons'?  Last night at the Janneys'?"

"No," she replied carelessly, "I hadn't noticed."

Curtis Janney, who had been moving fussily from one group to another,
came forward as he saw Camilla rise.

"I was hoping we might still get another short run, but I suppose you're
too tired, Mrs. Wray?"

"A little--but don't let me interfere.  I think I can find my way back."

He looked at his watch.  "Hello!  It's time we were off anyway.  The
other guests will be eating all our breakfast.  Come, Cort, Gretchen,
Mrs. Cheyne--you know you're my guest still," strolling from group to
group and ruthlessly breaking up the tete-a-tetes so successfully that
Rita Cheyne rebelled.

"You're a very disagreeable person, Mr. Janney--Ivywild resents it.
You're trying to form the hospitality of the county into one of those
horrid trusts.  Every time accident throws the hunt my way you insist on
dragging it off to Braebank.  It isn't fair.  Of course, if you
insist----"

And then, crossing to Camilla, "_Dear_ Mrs. Wray, I'm borrowing your
husband for a while.  I feel a little tired, so he promised to lunch
with me here and go on to Braebank later.  You don't mind, do you?"

"Not in the least, my _dear_ Mrs. Cheyne.  I'm _so_ sorry you feel
badly."  And then to her husband, "Remember, Jeff, Mr. Janney expects
you later."  Each spoke effusively, the tips of their fingers just
touching.  Then Mrs. Cheyne followed her visitors to the door.

Outside a coach-horn was blowing, and, as they emerged upon the porch
the Janney brake arrived, tooled by the coachman and bearing aloft Mrs.
Rumsen, General Bent, and Gladys, who had arrived from town on the
morning train.  But they would not get down, and the cavalcade soon
wound its way along the drive, leaving Jeff and Mrs. Cheyne waving them
a good-by from the steps.

Camilla took the road thoughtfully.  It was the first time in their
brief social career that Jeff had not consulted her before he made his
own plans. She did not blame him altogether, for she knew that Jeff's
inexperience made him singularly vulnerable to the arts of a woman of
the type of Mrs. Cheyne, who, for want of any better occupation in life,
had come to consider all men her lawful prey.  Camilla knew that mild
flirtations were the rule rather than the exception in this gay world
where idle people caught at anything which put to flight the insistent
demon of weariness and boredom.  And she discovered that it was a part
of the diversion of the younger married couples to loan husbands and
wives to satisfy the light fancy of the hour. All this was a part of the
fabric in which she and Jeff were living and endangered society only
when the women were weak and the men vicious.  But Jeff somehow didn't
seem to fit into the picture.  His personality she had learned to
associate with significant achievements.  His faults, as well as his
virtues, were big, and he had a habit of scorning lesser sins.  The
pleasure of a mild flirtation such as his brothers of the city might
indulge in for the mere delight of the society of a woman would offer
nothing to Jeff, who was not in the habit of doing anything mildly or by
halves. Camilla knew him better than Mrs. Cheyne did.

Of course, no one thought anything of his new interest in Mrs. Cheyne.
All of the younger men were interested in Mrs. Cheyne at one time or
another, and it was doubtful if people had even noticed his attentions.
Cortland had, but there was a reason for that.  Anything that could
discredit Jeff in her eyes was meat and drink to him. But it was cruel
of Cortland to take advantage of her isolation, but how could she cut
herself off from Cort, when her husband, by the nature of the situation,
had thrown her so completely on his mercies?  It seemed as though all
the world was conspiring to throw her with the one man whose image she
had promised her conscience she would wipe from her heart.  He rode
beside her now remorselessly, proving by his silence more eloquently the
measure of his appreciation of the situation. She felt that he, too, was
entering the Valley of Indecision, with the surer step of a dawning
Hope, while she faltered on the brink of the Slough of Despond.

They had fallen well behind the others, and followed a quiet lane
bordered by a row of birch trees which still clung tenaciously to the
remnants of their autumn finery.  At one side gushed a stream, fed by
the early snows, which sang musically of the secrets of earth and sky.
There was no indecision here.  Every twig, every painted stone, the sky
and breeze, spoke a message of blithe optimism. All was right with the
world, and if doubt crept into the hearts of men it was because they
were deaf to the messages of Nature.  The spell of its beauty fell on
Camilla, too, and she found herself smiling up at Cortland Bent.  There
were many things to be thankful for.

"Are you happy?" he asked.

"One can't be anything else on a day like this."

"You don't care then?"

"For what?  Oh, yes.  I have a natural interest in the welfare of my
husband.  But I think Mrs. Cheyne is wasting her time."

"I think perhaps you underrate her," he muttered.

"I'd rather underrate Mrs. Cheyne than underrate myself," proudly.

He was silent for a moment, flicking at the weeds with his riding-crop.

"Mrs. Cheyne and you have nothing in common, Camilla," he said.  "I'm
afraid it isn't in you to understand this crowd.  The set in which she
and I were brought up is a little world in itself.  The things which
happen outside of it are none of its concern.  It doesn't care.  It has
its own rules and its own code of decency to which it makes its members
subscribe.  It is New York in miniature, the essence, the cream of its
vices, its virtues, and its follies.  It lives like that poison-ivy
along the fence, stretching out its tendrils luxuriously in the
direction of the sun, moving along the line of least resistance.  It
does not care what newer growth it stunts, what blossom learns to grow
beneath its shade, to fade and droop, perhaps to wither for lack of air
and sunlight----"

"And yet--there's Gretchen," she said, "and you."

He smiled almost gaily.  "Yes, there are many Gretchens, thank God.
Girls with the clean, sound vision of their sturdy forbears, whose
mothers were young when the city still felt the impress of its early
austerities."

"And you?" she repeated.

His brow darkened and he looked straight before him.

"What I am doesn't matter.  I was born and bred in this atmosphere.
Isn't that enough?"

"It's enough that you survived--that you, too, have a clean vision."

"No, that is not true," he said sharply.  "I can't see clearly--I'm not
sure that I want to see clearly--not now."

"I won't believe that, Cort.  Back there at _her_ house you said
something that was unworthy of you, that showed me another side of your
nature, the dark side, like the shadowy places under the ivy. I want you
to forget that you ever said them--that you ever thought them even."

"I can't," he muttered savagely.  "I _want_ some one to come between
you--to make him suffer what I am suffering--to place a distance between
you which nothing can ever repair."

"Some one has already come between us," she said, gently.  "The one I
have in mind is the Cort Bent of Mesa City, who used to help me gather
columbines; who rode with me far up the trail to get the last ray of the
sunset when the valley below was already asleep in the shadow; who
shouted my name in the gorge because he said it was sweet to hear the
mountains send back its echoes all silvered over with the mystery of the
Infinite; who told me of palaces and gardens in lands which I had never
seen, and of the talented men and women who had lived in them; who sang
to me in the moonlight and taught me to dream----"

"Don't, Camilla----"

"That was a boy I remember, who lived years and years ago when I was
rich--rich in innocent visions which he did nothing to destroy.  It was
he who gave me an idea that there were men who differed from those I had
known before--men in whose hearts was tenderness and in whose minds one
might find a mirror for one's harmless aspirations toward a life that
wasn't all material and commonplace.  He was my knight, that boy,
thoughtful, considerate, and gentle.  He was foolish sometimes, but I
loved him because his ideals had not been destroyed."

"I lied to you.  Life is a cinder."

She shook her head.  "No, you did not lie to me--not then.  Later you
did when you asked me to come to New York.  Oh, I know.  I can see more
clearly now.  Suppose that even now I chose what you call your solution
of the tangle we've made of things.  You'd like to see Jeff desert me
for Rita Cheyne so that you could have your own way with me now."

"Camilla!  I was mad then.  I thought you understood.  Gretchen and
I----"

"I understand many things better than I did," she interrupted.  "You
were no more mad then than you are now.  I think I have always been
willing to forgive you for that.  I wanted to forgive you because I
thought perhaps you didn't know what you were saying.  But you make it
harder for me now.  The boy I knew in the West is dead, Cortland.  In
his place rides a man I do not know, a man with a shadow in his eyes, a
man of the gay world, which moves along the line of least resistance,
with little room in his heart for the troubles of the woman he once
offered to protect with his life."

"I would still protect you--that is what I am offering."

"How?  By making me a woman like Rita Cheyne, who changes her husbands
as though they were fashions in parasols.  You offer me protection from
Jeff.  I refuse it."  And then she added a little haughtily, "I'm not
sure that I need any protection."

He glowered toward her, searching her face sullenly.

"You love him?" he muttered.

She smiled a little proudly.  "I can't love you both.  Jeff is my
husband."

"You love him?" he repeated.  "Answer me!"

"Not when you take that tone.  I'll answer you nothing.  Come, we had
better ride forward."  And, before he could restrain her, she had urged
her horse into a canter.

"Camilla!" he called.

But before he could reach her she had joined the others, outside the
gates of Braebank.




                              *CHAPTER X*

                        *TRITON OF THE MINNOWS*


Mr. Janney's breakfast guests had gone, and, having seen the last of the
country wagons depart, he went into the office next to the smoking room,
where Cornelius Bent sat awaiting him.  Curtis Janney brought a sheaf of
telegrams and letters which he laid on the desk.  Then he opened a
humidor, offered his guest a cigar, took one himself, and sat down.

"Well, what did you hear?" asked General Bent. Janney took a puff or two
at his cigar, then frowned at the papers on the table.

"A great deal," he muttered, "both bad and good.  I have here reports
for the whole week from our men in Denver, Pueblo, Kinney, and Saguache.
The pressure from Abington and the Chicago and Utah has finally brought
Noakes into line.  It was something of a job, for he's tied up in one of
Wray's development companies, and it has cost some money.  Abington had
to give him a big bonus for the stock in the Denver and Western.
Collins and Hardy came around all right, and it only remains to put the
screws on to make Wray show his hand."

"Have you decided on that?" asked the General.

"No, I haven't."

Curtis Janney took up a letter which he had separated from the others.

"You remember we thought his planning this new line to Pueblo was
financial suicide and that, if we gave Wray enough rope, he'd hang
himself.  We didn't even see the use of throwing the usual impediments
in the way."

Bent nodded.

"Well, they're building it."

"It's only a bluff."

"I'm not so sure.  My last reports show that the money is in the
treasury--some of it is Wray's, but most of it has come from Utah,
California, and Washington even.  The Denver and California is backing
the whole project, and tent towns are springing up along the line of the
survey.  Those people out there believe in Wray and are following him
like sheep."

"They wouldn't follow him long if we found a way to stop him," said the
General grimly.  "I've seen those stampedes before, but they always come
to an end.  What does Lamson report?"

"The Denver and California seems set on this thing--the more so as it
promises to be a success without much help from them."

General Bent got up and paced the floor with quick, nervous strides.

"Why, Curtis," he said, "you seem to see unusual trouble in the way.
The case presents no greater difficulties than the Seemuller plant did,
or the Myers and Ott, but we got them both in the end."

"There is a difference."

"Where?"

"The man himself.  He'll fight to the last ditch. That jaw wasn't given
him altogether as an ornament.  I'm sorry we can't find his weak point.
A man who looks as far ahead as he does is a good one to tie to."

"But he may not want any strings on him.  The other night at dinner at
my house he was boasting of his independence.  He didn't know how hot it
made me."

"Yes, he did.  That's why he did it.  He said the same thing here
yesterday.  But I wasn't deceived.  It was all a part of his game.  I
think in a game of bluff he can make old gamesters like you and me sit
up and do some guessing."  Janney knocked the ash from his cigar and
laughed.

"Cornelius, our fine scheme hasn't worked out--not so far.  When Wray
first came in the office, you sized him up as a social climber.  But, if
you think we are going to bewilder him by our clubs, the opera, and
social connections, you're reckoning without your host."

General Bent smiled tolerantly.

"He assimilates surprisingly well," he said with a reflective nod.  "For
all his Western manner, he never gives the impression of being
ill-at-ease. I'll say that for him.  Why, do you know, I strolled in on
Caroline the other afternoon on my way uptown and found him teaching her
how to play pinochle."

"Mrs. Rumsen?"

"Yes.  She'll be making him the rage before the winter is out.  But he
takes it all as a matter of course.  Indeed, I think he fancies himself
our equal in any matter."  He paused and then rose. "But he must prove
that.  The Amalgamated must own that smelter."

"Oh, yes," said Janney, following him with his eyes.  "It will, of
course.  We can't have him underbidding us.  It's lucky he hasn't tried
it yet. But that's the danger from a man with both ability and ambition.
And we can't run the risk of letting him get too far."

There was a silence of some moments, which Cornelius Bent improved by
running over the correspondence.  When he had finished he tossed the
letters abruptly on the table, and walked to the window.  "Poor Cort,"
he muttered, "he lost us the whole thing.  I wonder what's the matter
with that boy.  He always seems to miss it somehow.  I can never make a
business man of him--like you or myself--or like Jeff Wray."

"He's cost us a pretty penny," growled Janney.

The General still stood by the window, his chin deep in his chest, his
long fingers twitching behind his back.

"Jeff Wray must pay for that, Curtis.  If we can't beat him in one way
we must choose another. Jeff Wray stole the 'Lone Tree.'  He trespassed
on our property in the dead of the night, did violence to one of our
employes, and bluffed Cort into signing that lease.  If there was any
law in the state of Colorado, he'd be serving his term at Canon City.
But I'll get him yet!  I will, by God!  If he'd come in this office now
and hold you up for the money in your safe he'd be a thief.  What is the
difference?"

"Just this: He was successful, and he left no loose ends behind him."

"I've thought at times, Janney, that you lack some interest in this
fight."

"Why?  Because I take the precaution to get all the information I
can--and because my information turns out to be unfavorable to our
plans? You want to crush Wray.  Very well.  I have no objections.  Crush
him if you can.  But it would hardly do to let him crush _us_."

Bent turned and examined his host curiously. Then he laughed.  It wasn't
pretty laughter, and it cracked dryly, like the sound of a creaking
door.

"Upon my word, Curtis, you amaze me," he said.

"Very well," put in Janney coolly.  "But think it over.  Don't be hasty.
If he puts that road through and starts the game of underbidding on the
raw product, we'll be in for a long fight--and an expensive one.  I
don't think the Company wants that now.  McIntyre doesn't, I know.  And
Warrington, as usual, is for temporizing."

"Temporizing?"  Cornelius Bent's jaws snapped viciously.  "This is not a
case where personal preferences can be considered.  There's a great
principle involved.  Are we going to let an upstart like Jeff Wray--a
petty real estate operator from an obscure Western town--come into our
field with a few stolen millions and destroy the plans of an organized
business which controls the output of practically all the great
gold-producing states--a company whose sound methods have brought order
out of chaos, have given employment to an army of people; whose patents
have simplified processes, reduced the cost of production, and kept the
price of the metal where it is satisfactory both to the mines and the
market?  Are we going to see all this jeopardized by a wild-catter, a
tin-horn gambler, a fellow with neither decency nor moral principle?
Temporize like Warrington if you like, but the Board of the Amalgamated
must make a fight for the Wray smelter--or accept my resignation."

Bent stalked the floor swiftly, biting off the ends of his sentences as
though they were parts of Wray's anatomy, clenching his fingers as he
might have done had they encircled Wray's neck.  Curtis Janney followed
him with his gaze, his brows tangled and his lips compressed, aware of
the seriousness of the situation.  The resignation of Cornelius Bent
from the Board of the Amalgamated was a contingency not for a moment to
be considered.

"That, of course, is impossible," he said.  "We're all behind you to a
dollar if you take that stand.  But couldn't it be wise to have Wray in
and talk to him?  We might learn something that's not on the cards."

"Oh, yes, if you like," growled the General, "but you're wasting time.
I've got my idea of what that property is worth.  I'll make him the
offer.  If he refuses"--and his lower jaw worked forward--"it will be
war--to the last ditch."

Curtis Janney pressed a bell, and a servant appeared.

"Has Mr. Wray returned?"

"Yes, sir," said the man.

"Tell him General Bent would like to see him here."

The man departed, and General Bent with an effort relaxed the muscles of
his face and sat.  Both gentlemen looked up quickly when the servant
returned a few moments later.

"I delivered your message, sir," he said.  "Mr. Wray asked me to say
that he is engaged at the present moment and will join you later."

General Bent's brows drew together angrily, but Janney inquired suavely,
"Where did you find him, Carey?"

"In the conservatory, sir, with Mrs. Cheyne."

Janney smiled, but suppressed Bent's sudden exclamation with a wave of
the hand.

"You may bring in the whisky, then tell him that General Bent and I will
await his convenience."

"Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir."

"Confound his impudence!" muttered the General, biting at his lip.

"All for effect, Cornelius," said Janney.  "That fellow is an artist.
He's saving his face for the ordeal."

"Let him save his neck," sneered Bent.

Janney stretched his legs forward and smoked comfortably.  "Break it if
you like, Cornelius," he said.  "I can't, you know, so long as he's my
guest."

Wray sauntered in some moments later, accompanied by Rita Cheyne.
General Bent looked up with a scowl, which the lady's gay assurance
failed to dismiss.

"May I come in, too?" she asked.  "I'm wild to hear how big men talk
business.  Won't you let me, Cousin Cornelius?  I'm positively thirsty
for knowledge--business knowledge.  You' don't mind, do you, Mr.
Janney?"

"You can't be interested."

Wray laughed.  "I'm the original woolly Western lamb being led to the
shearing, Mrs. Cheyne----"

"The golden fleece!" she put in.  "I know.  But I'm not going to allow
it.  You're not going to let them--are you, Jeff Wray?"

"I never knew a lamb that had any opinions on the matter," he said
easily.

The General got to his feet testily.

"Rita, this won't do at all.  We wanted to speak to Wray privately----"

"Oh!  You needn't mind me.  I'm positively bursting with other people's
confidences.  But I'm really the soul of discretion.  Please let me
stay."  She went over to Curtis Janney and laid her hands on his
shoulders appealingly.  "I'll sell you Jack-in-the-Box if you will, Mr.
Janney," she said.  "You know you've wanted that horse all season."

Janney laughed.  "That's a great temptation--but this isn't my affair,"
and he glanced at General Bent, who stood frowning at them from the
window.

"Leave the room at once, Rita!" said the General sternly.  "You're
interfering here.  Can't you see----?"

Mrs. Cheyne dropped her hands.

"Oh, if you take that tone, of course."  She moved toward the door,
turning with her hand on the knob--"I think you're horrid--both of you.
I hope your lamb turns out to be a lion, and eats you up."  And, with a
laugh and a toss of her head, she went out, banging the door behind her.

Jeff Wray and Curtis Janney laughed, but the frown on General Bent's
face had not relaxed for an instant.  When the door had closed he sat
down in his chair again, while Janney offered cigars.  Jeff took one
with a sudden serious air, meant perhaps as a tribute to the attitude
and years of his fellow guest.

Curtis Janney, looking from one to the other, searched each face for
signs of doubt or indetermination and found in each the same deeply set
eyes, straight brow, firm, thin mouth, square jaw, and heavy chin which
he recognized as belonging to those of this world who know how to fight
and who do not know when they are beaten.  Wray's features were heavier,
the lines in the General's face more deeply bitten by the acid of Time,
but their features were so much alike that, had Janney not known the
thing was impossible, it might have been easy to imagine some kind of
collateral or even more intimate family relationship.

"You asked me to come here," said Wray, easily apologetic.  "What can I
do for you, General Bent?"

Bent's deeply set eyes were hidden under his bushy eyebrows, but the
lips which held his cigar were flickering in a smile.

"Yes," he began with a slow, distinct enunciation, which Wray recognized
at once as belonging to his office downtown, "I thought we might talk a
little business, if Mr. Janney doesn't object."

"Not in the least," said Janney, "but there's no reason why we shouldn't
mix in a little of the Old Thorne," and he handed the decanter to Wray.
Cornelius Bent refused.

"Wray," he went on, "we've been talking about your plant down in the
Valley.  From all we've been able to find out, it's a pretty good
proposition in a small way.  But the Amalgamated Reduction Company has
no special interest in acquiring it. That mountain range, in our
judgment, will never be a big producer.  The 'Lone Tree' is the kind of
an exception that one finds only once in a lifetime."

"And yet we're running on full time," said Wray, with an odd smile.  "If
the other mines keep up their promise we won't need to buy any more ore,
General."

"The mountains of the West are full of holes that once were promising,
Wray--like notes of hand--but they've long since gone to protest."

Jeff's chin tipped upward the fraction of an inch. "I'm endorsing these
notes, General.  Besides," he added suavely, "you know I'm not
overanxious to sell.  When I came into your office it was only with the
hope that I might establish friendly relations.  That, I'm glad to say,
I succeeded in doing. Your health, Mr. Janney."

General Bent refused to be disarmed.  "Yes, I know.  But friendship and
business are two things.  Commercially you are in the attitude of a
rival of the company I represent.  Of course"--opulently--"not a serious
rival, but one who must logically be considered in our plans.  We didn't
like your building that smelter, and you could have brought your ore at
a fair price to one of our plants in Pueblo or Colorado Springs."

"Yes--but that interfered with my own plans," said Jeff.  "And I have
had them a long time."

"It's a little late to talk about that," assented Bent.  "The plant is
there, the mines are there, and----"

"Yes.  But I don't see how they need bother you.  Most of the gold we
send to market comes from the 'Lone Tree.'  I haven't handled any ore
below your prices--not yet."

There was, if possible, the slightest accent on the last words, but Wray
uttered them with a sweet complacency which failed to deceive.  This
young fool was threatening--actually threatening the mighty Smelting
Trust.  It was so preposterous that General Bent actually laughed--a
thing he seldom did below Twenty-third Street or when he talked business
elsewhere.

"No," he said grimly.  "I'm glad that didn't seem necessary.  It would
have been a pity.  See here, Wray"--he leaned forward, his face drawn in
decisive lines--"let's get to the point.  We've both been dodging it
very consistently for a month. You've got some property that may be
useful to us.  We've thought enough about it at least to make a few
inquiries about the whole situation--and about you.  We could take that
plant under our own management and do a little better than you could.  I
don't think the location really warrants it--for the big mine may stop
paying any day and the railroad facilities, you'll admit, are not of the
best.  But, if you're willing to sell out at a moderate figure, we might
buy it.  Or, perhaps, you'd like to come in with us and take stock in
the Company.  We think a good deal of your ability. There isn't any
doubt that you could make yourself useful to us if you chose."

"Thanks," said Jeff, with a sip at his Scotch, and then looked out of
the window.  He had caught the meaning of General Bent's casual remark
about the railroad facilities.

"Of course," Bent went on, "I don't care to show improper curiosity
about your plans, but if you are willing to meet me in a friendly spirit
we might reach an agreement that would be profitable both to your
companies and mine."

"I'd rather think it was interest than curiosity," said Wray with a
smile.  "But, unfortunately, I haven't got any plans--further than to
get all the ore I can out of 'Lone Tree' and to keep my works busy.
Just now I'm pretty happy the way things are going.  I've screwed the
lid down, and I'm sitting on it, besides--with one eye peeled for the
fellow with the screw driver."

Cornelius Bent controlled his anger with difficulty. His equality with
Jeff, as a guest of Curtis Janney, gave Wray some advantages.  The easy
good nature with which he faced the situation and his amused
indifference to the danger which threatened him put the burden of proof
on the General, who experienced the feelings of an emperor who has been
jovially poked in the ribs by the least of his subjects.  This was _lese
majeste_.  Wray was either a fool or a madman.

"Has it never occurred to you, Wray," snapped Bent, "that somebody might
come along with an axe?"

"Er--no.  I hadn't thought of that," he replied quietly.

"Well, think it over.  It's worth your while."

"Is this a declaration of war?"

"Oh, no," hastily, "merely a movement for peace."

Wray took a few puffs at his cigar and looked from Janney to the
General, like a man on whom some great truth had suddenly dawned.

"I had no idea," he said, with a skillfully assumed expression of
wonder, "that the Amalgamated was so desperately anxious as this."

In drawing aside the curtain, he had still managed to retain his
tactical advantage.  Both older men felt it--Bent more than Janney,
because it was he who had shown their hand, while Wray's cards were
still unread.

The natural response was tolerant amusement, and both of them made it.

"Anxious?" laughed Bent.  "Is the lion anxious when the wolf comes
prowling in his jungle? Success has twisted your perspective, my dear
Wray. The Amalgamated is not anxious--it has, however, a natural
interest in the financial health of its competitors."

"But I'm _not_ a competitor.  That's just the point.  I'm governed by
_your_ methods, _your_ plans, _your_ prices.  I've been pretty careful
about that. No, _sir_, I know better than to look for trouble with the
Amalgamated."

"One moment, Wray," put in Janney; "we don't seem to be getting
anywhere.  Let's simplify matters.  We can get along without your plant,
but if we wanted to buy, what would you want for it?"

"Do you mean the smelter--or all my interests in the Valley?" asked Wray
quickly.

"The smelter, of course--and the Denver and Saguache Railroad."

"I don't care to sell--I've got other interests--my Development Company,
the coal mines and lumber--they're all a part of the same thing, Mr.
Janney, like the limbs of my body--cut one off, and I might bleed to
death."

"We could give you traffic agreements."

"I'd rather not.  I'll sell--but only as a whole--gold mines, coal,
lumber, and all."

Wray caught General Bent's significant nod.

"That is my last word, gentlemen," he concluded firmly.

There was a silence, which Cornelius Bent broke at last.

"And what is your figure, Mr. Wray?" he asked.

Jeff Wray reached for the match box, slowly re-lit his cigar, which
emitted clouds of smoke, through which presently came his reply.  "You
gentlemen have been kind to me here in New York. I want you to know that
I appreciate it.  You've shown me a side of life I never knew existed.
I like the West, but I like New York, too.  I want to build a house and
spend my winters here--I wasn't figuring on doing that just yet--but if
you really want my interests I'll sell them to you--without
reservation--every stick and stone of them for thirty millions."

"Thirty millions?"

The voices of both men sounded as one, Janney's frankly
incredulous--Bent's satirical and vastly unpleasant.

"Thirty millions!" Bent repeated with a sneer. "Dollars or cents, Mr.
Wray?"

Jeff turned and looked at him with the innocent and somewhat vacuous
stare which had learned its utility in a great variety of services.
Jeff only meant it as a disguise, but the General thought it impudent.

"Dollars, sir," said Jeff coolly.  "It will pay me that--in time."

"In a thousand years," roared the General. "The Amalgamated doesn't
figure on millenniums, Mr. Wray.  We don't want your other interests,
but we'll buy them--for five million dollars--in cash--and not a cent
more.  You can sell at that price or--" the General did not see, or
refused to see, the warning glance from Janney--"or be wiped off the
map.  Is that clear?"

"I think so, sir," said Wray politely.  "Will you excuse me, Mr.
Janney?" and bowed himself out of the room.




                              *CHAPTER XI*

                               *DISCORD*


That afternoon late, Berkely and the Wrays returned to town, and the
Western wires tingled with Jeff's telegrams to Pueblo, Kinney, and Mesa
City.  He had burnt his bridges behind him, and, like a skillful cavalry
leader, was picking out the vantage points in the enemy's country.  The
answers came slowly, but Wray had planned his campaign before he left
the West, and the messages were satisfactory.  He realized that his
utility in New York, for the present at least, was at an end, and he saw
that he must soon leave for the West to repair any possible break in his
line of communications.

Camilla learned of his intended departure with mingled feelings.  Her
husband's rather ostentatious deference to Mrs. Cheyne had annoyed her.
She knew in her heart that she had no right to cavil or to criticise,
and pride forbade that she should question him.  Larry's presence at
dinner precluded personal discussions, and Camilla sat silent while the
men talked seriously of Jeff's business plans. It had not been her
husband's habit to discuss his affairs with her, and, when the coffee
was served, he asked her coolly if she wouldn't rather be alone.

"Do you mind if I stay, Jeff?" she asked.  "I'd like to hear, if you
don't mind."

"I'd rather you wouldn't.  You can't be interested in this--besides, the
matter is rather important and confidential."

She got up quickly.  Larry Berkely, who had caught the expression in her
eyes, opened the door for her and followed her into the drawing room.

"Don't be annoyed, Camilla," he whispered. "Jeff is worried.  You
understand, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, I understand," she replied wearily. "Don't mind me."

As the door closed behind him she stood irresolute for a moment, then
suddenly realized she had been up since dawn and was very tired.  Her
body ached, and her muscles were sore, but the weariness in her mind was
greater than these.  The closing of the dining-room door had robbed her
of the refuge she most needed.  She wanted to talk--to hear them
talk--anything that would banish her own thoughts--anything that would
straighten out the disorderly tangle of her late impressions of the new
life and the people she had met in it.  She had never thought of Jeff as
sanctuary before, and yet she now realized, when the support of his
strength was denied her, that in her heart she had always more or less
depended upon him for guidance.

And yet she feared him, too.  A while ago she had been filled with
horror at his share in the "Lone Tree" affair, and since that time the
knowledge had haunted her.  But she had not dared to speak of it to him.
She felt instinctively that this was one of the matters upon the other
side of the gulf that had always yawned with more or less imminence
between them.  Their relations were none too stable to risk a chance of
further discord.  The difference in his manner which she had noticed a
week or more ago had become more marked, and to-night at the dinner
table he had troubled less than usual to disguise his lack of interest
in her opinions. The image of Cort was ever in her mind, and the danger
that threatened her seemed no less distant than before, and yet she
still hoped, as she had always done, that something would happen--some
miracle, some psychological crisis which would show her husband and
herself the way to unity. Since she had seen Cortland Bent, she had lost
some faith in herself, gained some fear of Jeff, whose present attitude
she was at a loss to understand, but she still clung desperately to the
tattered shreds of their strange union, though lately even those seemed
less tangible.  To-night, when she had asked him to take her West with
him, he had refused her impatiently--almost brusquely.

She went into her own rooms slowly and undressed. As she sat before her
mirror, the sight of the scratch on her face recalled the incidents of
the day. Mrs. Cheyne!  Her lips drew together, her brows tangled in
thought, and she dismissed her maid, who had come in to brush her hair.
What right had Jeff to ignore her as he had done?  No matter what her
own shortcomings, in public, at least, she had always shown him a proper
respect and had never in her heart dishonored him by an unworthy
thought. For one brief moment in Cortland Bent's arms she had been swept
from the shallows into deeper water, but even then she had known, as she
knew now, that loyalty to Jeff had always been uppermost in her
thoughts.  They must have an understanding before he went away.  She
would not be left here in New York alone.  She had learned to distrust
herself, to distrust Jeff, Cort, and all the charming irresponsible
people of the gay set into which they had been introduced.

In her dressing gown she sat before her fire and listened to the murmur
of voices in the drawing room, from which she had been banished.  She
could hear Jeff's steps as he rose and paced the floor, his voice louder
and more insistent than Larry's. There was a coming and going of pages
delivering and receiving telegrams, and she felt the undercurrent of a
big crisis in Jeff's career--the nature of which she had only been
permitted to surmise.  His attitude had wounded her pride. It hurt her
that Larry should see her placed in the position of a petitioner.  Her
one comfort was the assurance that she did not care what Jeff himself
thought of her, that it was her pride which insisted on a public
readjustment of their relations.

Camilla got up, slowly, thoughtfully, and at last moved to the bell
determinedly.

To her maid she said, "Tell Mr. Wray I'd like to see him before he goes
out."

When Wray entered the room later, a frown on his face, the cloud of
business worry in his eyes, he found Camilla asleep on the divan under a
lamp, a magazine on the rug beside her, where it had fallen from her
fingers.  His lips had been set for short words, but when he saw her he
closed the door noiselessly behind him.  Even sleep could not diminish
the proud curve of the nostrils, or change the firmly modeled chin and
the high, clearly penciled brows.  Jeff looked at her a moment, his face
showing some of the old reverence--the old awe of her beauty.

And while he looked, she stirred uneasily and murmured a name.  He
started so violently that a chair beside him scraped the floor and awoke
her.

"I must have--oh--it's you, Jeff----"

"You wanted to see me?" he asked harshly.

"Yes--I----"  She sat up languidly.  "I did want to see you.  There are
some things I want to talk about--some things I want explained.  Sit
down, won't you?"

"I--I haven't much time."

"I won't keep you long.  You've decided to go West--without me?"

"Yes, next week.  Perhaps sooner if----"

"I want you to change your mind about taking me with you."

"Why?"

"I want to go."

Jeff laughed disagreeably.  "You women are funny.  For a year you've
been telling me that the only thing you wanted was a visit to New York.
Now you're here, you want to go back.  I've told you to get all the
clothes you need, hired you an apartment in the best hotel, given you
some swell friends, bought you jewelry----"

"I don't want jewelry, or clothes, or friends," she insisted.  "I want
to go back and watch them build 'Glen Irwin.'"

"They've stopped working on 'Glen Irwin.'  I wanted the money that was
going into that."

"Oh!"

"I've a big fight on, and I need all the capital I can swing.  'Glen
Irwin' will have to wait," he finished grimly.

"Of course--I didn't understand.  But it makes no difference.  I can
stay at the hotel or at Mrs. Brennan's."

"After all this?  Oh, no, you'd be miserable. Besides, I have other
plans."

"You don't want me?"

"No.  I'll be very busy."

"No busier than you were before we came here."

Jeff paced the length of the room and returned before he answered her.

"See here, Camilla.  You ought to know, by this time that when I say a
thing I mean it.  I'm going West alone to do some fence-building.
You're to stay here and do the same thing--socially. I need these people
in my business, and I want you to keep on good terms with them."

She gazed thoughtfully at the fire.  "Don't you believe me when I say I
want to go with you?"

Jeff made an abrupt movement.  "Well--hardly. We've always got along
pretty well, so long as each of us followed our own pursuits.  But I
think you might as well acknowledge that you don't need me--haven't
needed me now or at any other time."

"I do need you, Jeff.  I want to try and take a greater interest in your
affairs--to help you if I can, socially if necessary, but I'd rather do
it with you than alone."

"I may not be gone long--perhaps only a week or so.  In the meanwhile,
you're your own mistress."

"You've always let me be that.  But I have reasons for wanting to leave
New York."

Wray turned and stared at her blankly.  "Reasons?"

"Yes.  I--I'm a little tired.  The life here is so gay.  I'm unused to
it.  It bewilders me."

"I think I understand," he said slowly.  "But it can't be helped.  I
want you to cultivate the McIntyres, the Warringtons, and the Rumsens.
Larry will stay here in the hotel for a while.  You can call on him."

She fingered the pages of a book beside her. "Then this is final?" she
asked.

"Yes--you must do as I say."

He had never before used that tone with her. The warm impulse that had
sought this interview was dried at its source.  "Very well--I'll stay,"
she said coldly, "no matter what happens."

He examined her shrewdly.

"You're afraid?" he asked.  "That's too bad. I thought I was doing you a
service."

"What do you mean?"

"Cort Bent.  That's what I mean.  Cort Bent. He's yours.  I give him to
you."

"Jeff!"

She rose and faced him, trembling, and her eyes flickered like a
guttering candle, as she tried to return his look.  "How could you?" she
stammered. "How could you speak to me so?"

But he was merciless.  "Oh, I'm not blind, and I'm not deaf, either.
I've seen and I've heard.  But I didn't need to see or to hear.  Don't
you suppose I've always known you married me out of spite--out of pique,
because Cort Bent wouldn't marry you.  I knew it then just as I know it
now, but I hoped I could win you back and that things would be the same
as they were before _he_ came meddling in my affairs.  Well, you know
what happened better than I do.  Our marriage has been a failure. I was
a fool--so were you.  We've made the best of a bad job, but that don't
make it a good job. I let you go your own way.  I've been good to you
because I knew I'd been as big a fool as you were. What I didn't know
was that you'd met Cort Bent behind my back----"

"That is not true," she broke in.  "That day he called here----"

"Don't explain," impatiently, "it won't help matters.  I'm not blind.
The main fact is that you've seen Cort Bent again and that you're still
in love with him.  These people are talking about you."

"Who?  Mrs. Cheyne?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cheyne--and others."

Camilla steadied herself with a hand upon the table.  The brutality of
his short, sharp indictment unnerved her for the moment.  She had hoped
he would have given he

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