Chapter VI: Part 6

"Speak to me freely, Cort," said the old man more kindly.

"I don't want you to think of Camilla as the wife of Jeff Wray. I want you to think of her as I think of her--as herself--as the girl I knew when I first went West, an English garden-rose growing alone in the heart of the desert. How she had taken root there Heaven only knows, but she had--and bloomed more tenderly because of the weeds that surrounded her."

He paused a moment and glanced at his father. General Bent had sunk deep in his chair, his shaggy brows hiding his deeply set eyes, which peered like those of a seer of visions into the dying embers before him. A spell seemed to have fallen over him. Cortland felt for the first time in his life that there was between them now some subtle bond of sympathy, unknown, undreamed of, even. Encouraged, he went on.

"She was different from the others. I thought then it was because of the rough setting. I know now that it wasn't. She is the same here that she was out there. I can't see anything in any other woman; I don't want to see anything in any other woman. I couldn't make her out; it puzzled me that I could do nothing with her. After school hours--she was the schoolmistress, you know, sir--we rode far up into the mountains. She got to be a habit with me; then a fever. I didn't know what was the matter except that I was sick because of the need of her. I didn't think of marriage then. She was nothing. Her father kept a store in Abilene, Kansas. I thought of you. All my inherited instincts, my sense of class distinction, of which we people in New York make such a fetich, were revolted. But I loved her, and I told her so."

Cortland sat up, then leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and followed his father's gaze into the fire.

"She was too clean to understand me, sir. I knew it almost before I had spoken. In her eyes there dawned the horror, the fear, the self-pity which could not be said in words. Then Jeff Wray came in and I left her--left Mesa City. There was--nothing else--to do."

His voice, which had sunk to a lower key, halted and then was silent. A chiming clock in the hallway struck the hour; other clocks in dainty echo followed in different parts of the house; an automobile outside hooted derisively; but for a long while the two men sat, each busied with a thread of memory which the young man had unreeled from the spool of life. In the midst of his thoughts Cort heard a voice at his elbow, the voice of an old man, tremulous and uncertain, a softer voice than his father's.

"It is strange--very, very strange!"

"What is strange, sir?"

Cornelius Bent passed his fingers before his eyes quickly and straightened in his chair.

"Your story. It's strange. You know, Cort, I, too, once loved a woman like that--the way you do. It's an old romance--before your mother, Cort. Nobody knows--nobody in the East ever knew--even Caroline----"

He stopped speaking as though he had already said too much, got up slowly and walked the length of the room, while Cortland watched him, conscious again of the sudden unusual sense of conciliation in them both. At the other end of the room the General stood a moment, his hands behind his back, his gaze upon the floor.

"I am sorry, Cort," he said with sudden harshness. And then, after a pause, "You must not see Mrs. Wray again."

Cortland's hands clenched until the knuckles were white, and his eyes closed tightly, as though by a muscular effort he might rob them of a persistent vision. When he spoke his voice was husky like that of a man who had been silent for a long time.

"You're right, sir--I've thought so for some days. But it's not so easy. Sometimes I think she needs me----"

"Needs you? Don't they get along?"

"I don't know. There are times when I feel that I am doing the right sort of thing."

"He doesn't abuse her?"

"I don't know. She'd be the last person to speak of it if he did. But I think she doesn't altogether want me to go."

General Bent shook his head slowly. "No, Cort. It won't do. What you've just told me makes your duty very clear--your duty to her and your duty to yourself. There's danger ahead--danger for you both. You may not care for my advice--we've not always understood each other--but I hope you'll believe me when I say that I offer it unselfishly, with the single purpose of looking after your own welfare. Leave New York. I'm prepared to send you West next week, if you'll go. There will be a lot of work for us all. It's possible that I may go, too, before long. I can give you duties which will keep you busy so that you won't have time to think of other things. When I first spoke to you of this business to-night I spoke as President of the Amalgamated Reduction Company, now I am speaking to you as a father. I want you with us more than ever--largely on our account, but more largely now upon your own. Will you go?"

Cortland rose and leaned one elbow on the mantel.

"You want me to help you in the fight for Wray's smelter?"

"Yes, I do."

"Don't you want me to see her again?"

"It's wiser not to. No good can come of it--perhaps a great deal of harm."

"She would not understand--she knows I dislike her husband, but it seems to me I ought to tell her----"

"That you're making financial war upon her husband? Forewarn him--forearm him? What else would you say. That doesn't seem fair to me, does it?"

He paused, watching his son narrowly and yet with a kind of stealthy pity. Cortland's struggle cost him something.

"I suppose you're right," he said at last. And then, turning around toward his father, "I will not see her again. Give me the work, sir, and I'll do my best. Perhaps I haven't always tried to do that. I will, though, if you give me the chance."

"Your hand on it, Cort. I won't forget this. I'm glad you spoke to me. It hasn't always been our custom to exchange confidences, but I'll give you more of mine if you'll let me. I'm getting old. More and more I feel the need of younger shoulders to lean on. I'm not all a business document, but the habit of mercilessness grows on one downtown. Mercy has no place in business, and it's the merciful man that goes to the wall. But I have another side. There's a tender chord left in me somewhere. You've struck it to-night, and there's a kind of sweetness in the pain of it, Cort. It's rusty and out of use, but it can still sing a little."

Cortland laid his hand on the old man's shoulder almost timidly, as he might have done to a stranger.

"You'll forgive me, father----?"

"Oh, that"--and he took his son's hand--"I honor you for that, my son. She was the woman you loved. You could not hear her badly spoken of. Perhaps if I had known my duty--I should have guessed. Say nothing more. You're ready to take my instructions?"

"Yes--and the sooner the better."

"Very good. You'll hear more of this to-morrow. I am--I'm a little tired to-night. I will see you at the office."

Cortland watched him pass out of the door and listened to his heavy step on the broad staircase. Cornelius Bent was paying the toll of his merciless years.

When he was gone, Cortland sank into the big chair his father had vacated, his head in his hands, and remained motionless.

*CHAPTER XV*

*INFATUATION*

The season was at its height. The Rumsen ball, the Warringtons' dinner-dance, and some of the subscription affairs had passed into social history, but a brilliant season of opera not yet half over and a dozen large dances were still to follow. Camilla sat at her desk assorting and arranging the cards of her many visitors, recording engagements and obligations. When Jeff had left for the West she had plunged into the social whirlpool with a desperation born of a desire to forget, and, as she went out, there had come a bitter pleasure in the knowledge that, after all, she had been able to win her way in New York against all odds. People sought her now, not because she was a protegee of Mrs. Worthington Rumsen, or because she was the wife of the rich Mr. Wray, but because she was herself.

The dangers which threatened no longer caused her any dismay, for ambition obsessed her. It was an appetite which had grown great with feeding, and she let it take her where it would. There was not an hour of the day when she was not busy--in the mornings with her notes and her shopping, in the afternoons with luncheons, teas, and other smart functions, at night with dinners, the theatre, or the opera and the calendared dances. There were few opportunities for her to be alone, and the thought of a reconciliation with her husband, which had at one time seemed possible, had been relegated to her mental dust-bin in company with an assorted lot of youthful ideals which she had found it necessary to discard.

She could not remember the day when she had not been socially ambitious. Five months ago, before she and Jeff had quarreled, there had been a time when she had been willing to give up the world and go back with him. She had been less ambitious at that moment than ever before in her life. If he had taken her with him then, there might still have been time to repair their damages and begin life on a basis of real understanding. For a brief time she had abhorred the new life he had found for her, had hated herself for the thing that she really was, a social climber, a pariah--too good for her old acquaintances, not good enough for her new ones--a creature with a mission of intrusion, a being neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, and yet perhaps something of all three. But that period of mental probation had passed. She no longer felt that she was climbing. There were many broken rungs below her on the social ladder, but those above were sound, and her head was among clouds tinted with pink and amber.

Such was the magic of success. She lived in an atmosphere of soft excitements and pleasurable exhilarations, of compliments and of flattery, of violets and roses. Bridge lessons had improved her game, but she still discovered that the amounts she could lose in a week were rather appalling. Checks for large amounts came regularly from the West, and she spent them a little recklessly, convinced that she was obeying to the letter her husband's injunction to strengthen their social position, no matter what the cost. She had written Jeff twice in the first week after his departure asking if she could not follow him to Mesa City. His replies had been brief and unnecessarily offensive--so that, though his image loomed large at times, pride refused further advances. Cortland Bent had been with her continually and of course people were talking. She heard that from Mrs. Rumsen, who, in the course of a morning of casual "mothering," had spoken to Camilla with characteristic freedom.

"I know there's no harm in his attentions, child," she said, "at least so far as you're concerned. You have always struck me as being singularly capable of looking after yourself--and of course Cort is old enough to know what _he_ is about. But it never does any one any good to be talked about--especially a woman who has her way to make in the world. There is a simplicity almost rustic in the way you two young people allow yourselves to be discovered in public places--which, to an ancient philosopher like myself, carries complete conviction of innocence. But others may not be so discerning. If you were ugly or deformed it wouldn't make the slightest difference what you did, but, being handsome, you are on trial; and every pretty woman in society is on the jury of a court which convicts on circumstantial evidence alone."

Camilla thanked her preceptor for the warning, aware of an unpleasant sense of shock at the revelation. She seemed to have reached a point in her mad infatuation with life where warnings made no impression upon her. She had not seen Cort Bent for several days now, and, while she experienced a vague sense of loss in his absence, which had not been explained, she was so busy that she had not even found time to analyze it.

A belated cold season had set in--a season of snow and ice; and fashionable New Yorkers, in a brief interlude of unimportant engagements, flocked for the week-end to their country places to enjoy a few days of old-fashioned winter weather. The Billy Havilands' farm was within motoring distance of the town. It wasn't much of a place in the modern sense, merely a charming old shingled farmhouse which had been remodeled and added to, set in a big lawn like a baroque pearl in green enamel, surrounded by ancient trees which still protected it with their beneficent boughs. As Haviland and his wife preferred the city in winter and went to their Newport cottage in summer, they only used The Cove for small house parties between seasons. It was kept open for just such occasions as the present one, and Camilla, who had joined this party at the last moment, was looking forward with enjoyment to a glimpse of winter life in a different sort of community.

Snow had fallen during the night, but the day was cold and clear--one of those dry, sparkling days like the winter ones in Colorado when the Saguache Peak was laid like a white paper-cutting against the turquoise sky, and the trees at timber line were visible in silhouette to the naked eye. It was freezing hard, and Camilla's skin tingled sharply beneath her motor veil, but she lay back in her warm furs beside Dorothy Haviland in the tonneau, drinking deep breaths of delight as she watched the panorama of purple hills across the river. The snow was not too deep for easy going, but in places it had drifted across the road waist high. Rejoicing in the chance to test the mettle of his high-powered car, Haviland took these drifts on the high gear, sending a cloud of iridescent crystals over and about his guests, who pelted the unresponsive back of his head with snowballs. Farmers in sleighs and wagons on runners drew aside in alarm, to stare with open mouths at the panting demon--which passed them by before their horses had time to be frightened. Every ride with "Billy" was a "joy" ride--he hadn't driven this car in the Vanderbilt Cup race for nothing. Jack Perot clung to the robe rail, and alternately prayed and swore in Haviland's ear; the Baroness Charny punctuated his remarks with cunning foreign cries, and Dorothy herself admonished him to be careful, but Camilla, whatever she felt, sat quietly between the two women, her pulses going fast, a prey to the new excitement of speed.

Haviland had 'phoned his orders from the city to have the bobsled sent over to the Country Club--and when they drove through the entrance gates, the pond in the valley below the golf course was dotted with skaters. A blue thread of smoke trailed skyward from the cabin of the Fishing and Skating Club--a part of the larger organization--from which people came and glided forth by twos and threes over the glossy blue surface of the pond.

A surprise awaited the party, for as the motor drew up at the steps of the Golf House it was greeted by a storm of soft snowballs from a crowd ambushed in a snow fort on the lawn. The motor party got out hurriedly, laughing like children, while Billy Haviland, like a good general, marshaled his forces under the protecting bulk of the machine, while they threw off their heavy furs and made snowballs enough to sally forth valiantly to the attack. The battle was short and furious, until Jack Perot and Camilla by a dexterous flank-movement assailed the unprotected wings and came to close quarters with the enemy, Larry, Gretchen, Cortland Bent, and Rita Cheyne. A well-aimed shot by Camilla caught Cortland on the nose, which disconcerted him for a moment, and Haviland improved his opportunity by washing Rita's face in snow. A truce was declared, however, but not before the besiegers had entered the breastworks and given three cheers for their victory.

"I'll never forgive you, Billy," laughed Rita, brushing the snow from her neck. "Never--I'm simply soaking."

"Spoils of victory! You're lucky I didn't kiss you."

"Yes, I am," she said with sudden demureness. "I'd rather have my face washed."

The machine was sent on, and, chatting gaily, the party made its way down to the cabin by the lakeside, a path to which had been cleared through the snow. Camilla glanced at Cortland Bent, who stood silently at her side.

"What's the matter, Cort? Aren't you going to speak to me?" she asked carelessly.

He forced a laugh. "Oh, yes, of course."

"Where have you been? Do you realize that I haven't seen you for the last two days?"

"Four," he corrected soberly. "I--I've been very busy."

"That's no explanation. You're angry?"

"No, not at all. I--thought I'd better not come."

She examined him curiously, and laid her fingers on his arm. "How funny you are? Has anything happened?"

He didn't reply at once, and kept his gaze away from her. "I came here to-day," he said deliberately, "because I thought it would be the one place where you and I wouldn't meet."

"Oh!" and she turned away abruptly, her chin in the air, "I'm sorry. We needn't meet _now_," and she hurried her steps.

But he lengthened his stride and kept pace with her.

"You don't understand----"

"I don't care to understand. You don't want to see me--that's enough----"

"Camilla, please----"

"I'm not in the habit of pursuing the men of my acquaintance, Cort. I'll save you the trouble of avoiding me." And with that she broke away from him and ran down the path, joining the others at the door of the house. His attitude annoyed her more because she couldn't understand it than because of any other reason. What had come over him? They had parted as friends with the definite assurance that they were to meet the next day. She had been busy writing letters then, but she remembered now that he had not called. There was an unaccountable difference in his manner, and he had spoken with a cold precision which chilled her. She felt it in all the sensitive antennae which a woman projects to guard the approaches to her heart. All that was feminine and cruel in her was up in arms at once against him. He needed a lesson. She must give it to him.

On the ice they met a merry party, and Billy Haviland pointed them all out to Camilla--Molly Bracknell and her diminutive husband, known in clubdom as the "comic supplement"; Jack Archer, the famous surgeon, and his fiancee, who had lost her appendix and her heart at the same time. Stephen Gillis, the lawyer, who was in love with his pretty client, Mrs. Cheyne, and didn't care who knew it.

"Is he really in love with Mrs. Cheyne?" asked Camilla.

"Oh, yes--threw over a girl he was engaged to. He's got it bad--worse than most of 'em."

"What a pity!"

"Rita's in good form this winter."

"She has a charm for men."

"Dolly says she's a _de luxe_ binding of a French novel on a copy of 'Handley Cross.' I guess it's true. But I've always been afraid of Rita."

"Why?"

"She's too infernally clever. She don't like my sort. She likes brainy chaps with serious purposes. They're the kind that always take to her. I think she knows I'm 'wise.'"

They crossed hands, and Camilla resolutely gave herself over to the pleasure of motion. She skated rather badly--a fact to be bewailed, since Rita Cheyne was doing "figure eights" and "corkscrews," but with Haviland's help she managed to make three or four turns without mishap. But she refused to "crack the whip," and skated alone until Cortland Bent joined her. He offered her his hand, but she refused his help.

"Won't you go away please, Cort?"

"I've got to see you to-night, Camilla," he said suddenly. "Where will you be?"

As she wouldn't reply, he took her hand and skated backward facing her. "You've got to see me, Camilla----"

"I can't--I won't."

"I'm going away to-morrow."

"We've gotten along for four days without meeting," she said airily. "I think I'll survive."

"You're heartless----"

"I know it. Please get out of my way."

"No--not until you promise to let me see you."

"You're seeing me now."

He took her firmly by the elbows. "Listen, Camilla! I'm leaving New York to-morrow for a long while--perhaps for good----"

For the first time she realized the importance of what he was saying and looked up into his eyes, discovering something in their shadows she had not seen before.

"Is it true? Why are you going?"

"That's what I wanted to tell you. May I see you to-night?"

She considered a moment before she replied indifferently.

"Yes, if you like. I am at the Havilands'."

As they stopped before the cabin, Jack Perot joined them, offering to take Camilla for a turn, but she said she was cold, and the three of them went inside to the burning log. Larry and Gretchen on the bench put a space between them rather suddenly.

"Don't move on _our_ account, Larry," said Perot mischievously; "your silhouettes through the window were wonderful--quite touching--in fact."

"Jack!" said Gretchen, her face flaming, "you couldn't _see_----"

"No, as a matter of fact, we couldn't--because the shades are drawn"--the painter laughed immoderately--"but you know we _might_ have."

"You're a very disagreeable person, and I don't like you at all," said Miss Janney. "I'll never let you do my portrait--_never_!"

"Ha! ha!" he cried in accents of Bowery melodrama. "At last, Geraldine, I have you in me cul-lutches. I'm desprit and starving! Next week I paint your portrait--or tell your father! Cha-oose, beautiful one!"

In the laugh which followed Larry joined good-naturedly. Indeed, there was nothing left to do--unless it was to wring the painter's neck. Instead of which, he wrung his hand and whispered, "I wish you would, Perot. It'll save me the trouble."

The rest of the crowd appeared after a while, and the steward brought hot Scotches, which detracted nothing from the gayety of the occasion.

"God made the country--man made the town," sighed Billy sententiously, holding the amber liquid to the firelight. "The simple pleasures--the healthy sports of our ancestors! Eh, Rita?"

"Oh, yes," with fine scorn, "quilting parties! No bridge, golf or tennis. Imagine a confirmed night owl like _you_, Billy, tucked safely in bed at nine."

"I'm often in bed by nine."

"Nine in the morning," laughed Perot. "That's safe enough."

"Don't believe 'em, Camilla. I'm an ideal husband, aren't I, Dolly?"

"I hadn't noticed it."

"Oh, what's the use?" sniffed Mrs. Cheyne. "There's only one Ideal Husband."

"Who?" asked a voice, solicitous and feminine.

"Oh, some other woman's, of course."

"How silly of you, Rita," said Gretchen indignantly. "It's gotten to the point where nobody believes the slightest thing you say."

"That's just what she wants," laughed Cortland. "Don't gratify her, Gretchen."

Mrs. Cheyne shrugged her shoulders, and, with a glance at Camilla, "Now the Ideal Wife, Cort----"

"Would be my own," he interrupted quickly, his face flushing. "I wouldn't marry any other kind."

"That's why you _haven't_ married, Cortland dear," said Rita acidulously.

Camilla listened with every outward mark of composure--her gaze in the fire--conscious of the growing animosity in Mrs. Cheyne. They had met only twice since Jeff's departure, and on those occasions each had outdone the other in social amenities, each aware of the other's hypocrisy. In their polite interchange of compliments Wray's name had by mutual consent been avoided, and neither of them could be said to have the slightest tactical advantage. But Camilla felt rather than knew that an understanding of some sort existed between Mrs. Cheyne and Jeff--a more complete understanding than Camilla and her husband had ever had. She could not understand it, for two persons more dissimilar had never been created. Mrs. Cheyne was the last expression of a decadent dynasty--Jeff, the dawning hope of a new one. She had taken him up as the season's novelty, a masculine curiosity which she had added to her cabinet of eligible amusements. Camilla's intuition had long since told her of Jeff's danger, and it had been in her heart the night they separated to warn him against his dainty enemy. Even now it might not have been too late--if he would have listened to her, if he would believe that her motive was a part of their ancient friendship, if he would meet her in a spirit of compromise, if he were not already too deeply enmeshed in Rita Cheyne's silken net. There were too many "ifs," and the last one seemed to suggest that any further effort in the way of a reconciliation would be both futile and demeaning.

Camilla was now aware that Mrs. Cheyne was going out of her way to make her relations with Cort conspicuous--permissible humor, had the two women been friendly. Under present conditions it was merely impertinence.

"Mrs. Cheyne means," said Camilla distinctly, "that the ideal husbands are the ones one can't get." And then, pointedly, "Don't you, Mrs. Cheyne?"

Rita glanced at Camilla swiftly and smiled her acknowledgment of the thrust.

"They wouldn't be ideal," she laughed, "if we ever got them, Mrs. Wray."

"Touchee," whispered Billy Haviland to Larry Berkely, delightedly.

Outside there was a merry jingle of sleighbells, and Mrs. Haviland rose. "Come, children," she said, "that's for us. I wish we had more room at The Cove. You'll come, though, Cort, won't you? We need another man."

"Do you mind if I stay out, Rita?" Cortland appealed.

"Oh, not at all, I'm so used to being deserted for Mrs. Wray that I'm actually uncomfortable without the sensation."

So the party was arranged. A long bobsled hitched to a pair of horses was at the door, and the women got on, while Gretchen pelted snowballs at Perot, and only succeeded in hitting the horses, so that Camilla and the Baroness were spilled out into the snow and the man had a hard time bringing the team to a stop. A pitched battle ensued while the three women scrambled into their places, Cortland and Billy covering the retreat. At last they all got on, and, amid a shower of snowballs which the sledders couldn't return, the horses galloped up the hill and out into the turnpike which led to the Haviland farm.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*OLD DANGERS*

Camilla had known for some time that she could not forget. She sought excitements eagerly because they softened the sting of memory, and the childish delights of the afternoon with the Havilands, while they made the grim shadow less tangible, could not drive it away. When the idle chatter of small talk was missing, Jeff loomed large. At The Cove she went at once to her room, but instead of dressing she threw herself on the bed and followed the pretty tracery of the wall paper beside her; her eyes only conjured mental pictures of the days in Mesa City, before Cortland Bent had come, the long rides with Jeff up the mountain trail when she first began to learn what manner of man he was and what manner of things he must one day accomplish. She seemed to realize now that even in those early days Jeff Wray had stood as a type of the kind of manhood that, since the beginning of time, has made history for the world.

With all his faults, his vulgar self-appreciation, and his distorted ethics, there was nothing petty or mean about him. He was generous, had always been generous to a fault, and there was many a poor devil of a gambler or a drunkard even in those days who had called his name blessed. He hadn't had much to give, but when he made a stake there were many who shared it with him. Since he had been married his benefactions had been numberless. He never forgot his old friends and, remembering old deeds of kindness to himself, had sought them out--a broken sheep-herder back on the range, a barber in Pueblo who was paralyzed, a cowboy in Arizona with heart disease, a freight brakeman of the D. & W. who had lost a leg--and given them money when he couldn't find work that they could do. She remembered what people in the West still said--that Jeff had never had a friend who wasn't still his friend.

She had often reviled herself because her judgment of all men was governed by the external marks of gentility which had been so dear to her heart--the kind of gentility which Cortland Bent had brought into Mesa City. Gentility was still dear to her heart, but there was a growing appreciation in her mind of something bigger in life than mere forms of polite intercourse. Jack Perot, who was painting her portrait; Billy Haviland, who sent her roses; Douglas Warrington, who rode with her in the park; Cortland Bent--all these men had good manners as their birthright. What was it they lacked? Culture had carved them all with finer implements on the same formula, but what they had gained in delicacy they had lost in force. Jeff might have been done by Rodin, the others by Carriere--Beleuze.

It made her furious that in spite of herself she still thought of Jeff. She got up and went to the mirror. There were little telltale wrinkles about her eyes, soft shadows under her cheek-bones which had not been there when she came to New York. It was worry that was telling on her. She had never yet been able to bring herself to the point of believing that all was over between Jeff and herself. Had she really believed that he was willing to live his future without her, she could not have consented even for so long as this to play the empty part he had assigned her. It was _his_ money she was spending, not her own; _his_ money which provided all the luxuries about her--the rich apartment in New York, the motor car, _carte blanche_ at Sherry's, extravagances, she was obliged to acknowledge, which for the present he did not share. True, she was following implicitly his directions in keeping his memory green in the social set to which he aspired, and she had done her part well. But the burden of her indebtedness to him was not decreased by this obedience, and she felt that she could not for long accept the conditions he had imposed. Such a life must soon be intolerable--intolerable to them both.

It was intolerable now. She could not bear the thought of his brutality, the cruelty of his silence, the pitiless money which he threw at her every week as one would throw a bone to a dog. He was carrying matters with a high hand, counting on her love of luxury and the delights of gratified social ambition to hold her in obedience. He had planned well, but the end of it all was near. It was her pride that revolted--that Jeff could have thought her capable of the unutterable things he thought of her--the pitiful tatters of her pride which were slowly being dragged from her by the tongue of gossip. Mrs. Rumsen had warned her, and Mrs. Cheyne made free use of her name with Cort's. The world was conspiring to throw her into Cortland's arms. She would not admit that the fault was her own--it was Jeff's. It had always been Jeff's. She had given him every chance to redeem her, but he had tossed her aside--for another. Now she had reached a point when she didn't care whether he redeemed her or not. She felt herself drifting--drifting--she didn't know where and didn't seem to care where.

It was affection she craved, love that she loved, and Cortland was an expression of it. He had always been patient--even when she had treated him unkindly. A whispered word to Cortland----

Her musing stopped abruptly. What did Cortland mean by avoiding her? And why was he leaving New York? There was a tiny pucker at her brows while she gave the finishing touches to her toilet; but when she went down to dinner her cheeks glowed with ripe color and her eyes were shot with tiny sparkling fires.

"Auction" bridge followed dinner. In the cutting Cort and the Baroness were out of it, and when Cort and the Baroness cut in, Camilla and Perot cut out. Fate conspired, and it was not until late in the evening that Cortland and Camilla found themselves alone in the deserted library at the far end of the wing. Camilla sank back into the silk cushions of the big davenport wearily.

"I played well to-night," she said; "I believe even Billy is pleased with me. I _did_ have luck, though--shameful luck----"

She stretched her arms above her head, sighing luxuriously. "Oh, life is sweet--after all."

Cortland watched her.

"Is it?" he asked quietly.

"Don't you think so, Cort?"

"There's not much sweetness left, for me in anything. I've got to go away from you, Camilla."

"So you said." And then airily, "Good-by."

He closed his eyes a moment.

"I want you to know what it means to me."

"Then why do it?"

"I--I've thought it all out. It's the best thing I can do--for you--for myself----"

"I ought to be a judge of that."

His dark eyes sought her face for a meaning.

"It's curious you didn't consult me," she went on. "I hope I know what's best for myself----"

"You mean that you don't care--my presence is unimportant. My absence will be even less important."

"I do care," she insisted. "What's the use of my telling you. I'll be very unhappy without you."

He shook his head and smiled. "Oh, I know--you'll miss me as you would your afternoon tea if it was denied you--but you'll do without it."

"I'm quite fond of afternoon tea, Cort." And then, more seriously, "Are you really resolved?"

"Yes," he muttered, "resolved--desperately resolved."

She threw herself away from him against the opposite end of the couch, facing him, and folded her arms, her lips closed in a hard line.

"Very well, then," she said cruelly, "go!" It seemed as if he hadn't heard her, for he leaned forward, his head in his hands, and went on in a voice without expression.

"I've felt for some time that I've been doing you a wrong. People are talking about us--coupling your name with mine--unpleasantly. Heaven knows what lies they're telling. Of course you don't hear--and I don't--but I know they're talking."

"How do you know?"

"My father----"

"Oh!"

"We quarreled--but the poison left its sting."

Camilla laughed nervously, the laughter of a woman of the world. It grated on him strangely.

"Don't you suppose _I_ know?" she said. "I'm not a baby. And now that you've ruined my reputation you're going to leave me. That's unkind of you. Oh, don't worry," she laughed again. "I'll get along. There are others, I suppose."

He straightened and turned toward her sternly.

"You mustn't talk like that," he said. "You're lying. I know your heart. It's clean as snow."

"Because _you_ haven't soiled it?" She clasped her hands over her knees and leaned toward him with wicked coquetry. "Really, Cort, you're a sweet boy--but you lack imagination. You know you're not the only man in the world. A woman in my position has much to gain--little to lose. I'm a derelict, a ship without a captain----"

He interrupted her by taking her in his arms and putting his fingers over her lips. "Stop!" he whispered, "I'll not listen to you."

"I mean it. I've learned something in your world. I thought life was a sacrament. I find it's only a game." She struggled away from him and went to the fireplace, but he rose and stood beside her.

"You're lying, Camilla," he repeated, "lying to me. Oh, I know--I've been a fool--a vicious--a selfish fool. I've let them talk because I couldn't bear to be without you--because I thought that some day you'd learn what a love like mine meant. And I wanted you--wanted you----"

"Don't you want me still, Cort?" she asked archly.

He put his elbows on the mantel and gazed into the flames, but would not reply, and the smile faded from her lips before the dignity of his silence.

"I've thought it all out, Camilla. I'm going away on business for my father, and I don't expect to come back. I thought I could go without seeing you again--just send you a note to say good-by. It was easier for me that way. I thought I had won out until I saw you to-day--but now it's harder than ever."

He looked up as he thought she might misconstrue his meaning. "Oh, I'm not afraid to leave on your account. Our set may make you a little careless, a little cynical, but you've got too much pride to lose your grip--and you'll never be anything else but what you are." He gazed into the fire again and went on in the same impersonal tone as if he had forgotten her existence. "I'll always love you, Camilla.... I love you more now than I ever did--only it's different somehow.... It used to be a madness--an obsession.... Your lips, your eyes, your soft fingers, the warm elusive tints of your skin--the petals of the bud--I would have taken them because of their beauty, crushed out, if I could, the soul that lived inside, as one crushes a shrub to make its sweetness sweeter." He sighed deeply and went on: "I told you I loved you then--back there in Mesa City--but I lied to you, Camilla. It wasn't love. Love is calmer, deeper, almost judicial, more mental than physical even.... I'm going away from you because I love you more than I love myself."

"Oh! you never loved me," she stammered. "You couldn't speak coldly like this if you did."

He raised his eyes calmly, but made no reply.

"Love--judicial!" she went on scornfully. "What do you know of love? Love is a storm in the heart; a battle--a torrent--it has no mind for anything but itself. Love is ruthless--self-seeking----"

"You make it hard for me," he said with an effort at calmness.

"You know I--I need you--and yet you'd leave me at a word."

"I'm going--because it's best to go," he said hoarsely.

"You're going because you don't care what happens to me."

He flashed around, unable to endure more, and caught her in his arms. "Do I look like a man who doesn't care? Do I?" he whispered. "If you only hadn't said that--if you only hadn't said that----"

Now that she had won she was ready to end the battle, and drew timidly away. But with Cort the battle had just begun. And though she struggled to prevent it, he kissed her as he had never done before. Her resistance and the lips she denied him, the suppleness of her strong young body, the perfume of her hair brought back the spell of mid-summer madness which had first enchained him.

"You've got to listen to me now, Camilla. I don't care what happens to my promises--to you--or to any one else. I'm mad with love for you. I'll take the soul of you. It was mine by every right before it was his. I'll go away from here--but you'll go with me--somewhere, where we can start again----"

In that brief moment in his arms there came a startling revelation to Camilla. Cort's touch--his kisses--transformed him into a man she did not know.

"Oh, Cort! Let me go!" she whispered.

"Away from all this where the idle prattle of the world won't matter," he went on wildly. "You have no right to stay on here, using the money he sends you--my money--money he stole from me. He has thrown you over, dropped you like a faded leaf. You're clinging to a rotten tree, Camilla. He'll fall. He's going to fall soon. You'll be buried with him--and nothing between you and death but his neglect and brutality."

In his arms Camilla was sobbing hysterically. The excitement with which she had fed her heart for the last few months had suddenly stretched her nerves to too great a tension. She had been mad--cruel to tantalize him--and she had not realized what her intolerance meant for them both until it was too late.

He misunderstood the meaning of those tears and petted her as if she had been a child.

"Don't, Camilla--there's nothing to fear. I'll be so tender to you--so kind that you'll wonder you could ever have thought of being happy before. Look up at me, dear. Kiss me. You never have, Camilla. Kiss me and tell me you'll go with me--anywhere."

But as he tried to lift her head she put up her hands and with an effort repulsed--broke away from--him and fell on the couch in a passion of tears. She had not meant this--not this. It wasn't in her to love any one.

In the process of mental readjustment following her husband's desertion of her she had learned to think of Cort in a different way. It seemed as though the tragedy of her married life had dwarfed every other relation, minimized every emotion that remained to her. Cortland Bent was the lesser shadow within the greater shadow, a dimmer figure blurred in the bulk, a part of the tragedy, but not the tragedy itself. For a time he had seemed to understand, and of late had played the part of guide, philosopher, and friend, if not ungrudgingly, at least patiently, without those boyish outbursts of petulance and temper in which he had been so difficult to manage. She cared for him deeply, and lately he had been so considerate and so gentle that she had almost been ready to believe that the kind of devotion he gave her was the only thing in life worth while. He had learned to pass over the many opportunities she offered him to take advantage of her isolation, and she was thankful that at last their relation had found a happy path of communion free from danger or misunderstanding. While other people amused and distracted her, Cort had been her real refuge, his devotion the rock to which she tied. But this! She realized that what had gone before was only the calm before the storm--and she had brought it all on herself!

He watched her anxiously, waiting for the storm to pass, and at last came near and put his arms around her again.

"No--not that!" she said brokenly. "It wasn't that I wanted, Cort. You don't understand. I needed you--but not that way." He straightened slowly as her meaning came to him.

"You were only--fooling--only playing with me? I might have known----"

"No, I wasn't playing with you. I--couldn't bear to lose you--but," she stammered resolutely, "now--I _must_---- You've got to go. I don't know what has happened to me--I haven't any heart--I think--no heart--or soul----"

He had turned away from her, his gaze on the dying log.

"Why couldn't you have let me go--without this?" he groaned. "It would have been easier for both of us."

She sat up slowly, still struggling to suppress the nervous paroxysms which shook her shoulders.

"Forgive me, Cort. You--you'll get along best without me. I've only brought you suffering. I'm a bird of ill-omen--which turns on the hand that feeds it. I was--was thinking only of myself. I wish I could make you happy--you deserve it, Cort. But I can't," she finished miserably, "I can't."

He did not move. It almost seemed as though he had not heard her. His voice came to her at last as though from a distance.

"I know," he groaned. "God help you, you love _him_." She started up as though in dismay, and then, leaning forward, buried her face in her hands in silent acquiescence. When she looked up a moment later he was gone.

*CHAPTER XVII*

*OLD ROSE LEAVES*

Camilla wrote nothing to Jeff about her illness. It was nothing very serious, the doctor said--only a fashionable case of nerves. The type was common, the medicine rest and quiet. He commended his own sanitarium, where he could assure her luxury and the very best society, but Camilla refused. She wanted to be alone, and so she denied herself to callers, canceled all her engagements, and took the rest cure in her own way. She slept late in the mornings, took her medicine conscientiously, put herself on a diet, and in the afternoon, with her maid only for company, took long motor rides in the country to out-of-the-way places on roads where she would not be likely to meet her acquaintances.

She knew what it was that she needed. It wasn't the strychnia tonic the doctor had prescribed, or even the rest cure. The more she was alone, the more time she had to think. It was in moments like the present, in the morning hours in her own rooms, that she felt that she could not forget. There was no longer the hum of well-bred voices about her, no music, the glamor of lowered lights, or the odor of embowered roses to distract her mind or soothe her senses. In the morning hours Jeff was present with her in the flesh. Everything about her reminded her of him; the desk at which he had worked, with its pigeon-holes full of papers in the reckless disorder which was characteristic of him; the corncob pipe which he had refused to discard; the Durham tobacco in its cotton bag beside a government report on mining; the specimens of ore from the "Lone Tree," which he had always used as paper weights; the brass bowl into which he had knocked his ashes; and the photograph, in its jeweled frame, of herself in sombrero and kerchief, taken at Myers's Photograph Gallery in Mesa City at the time when she had taught school, before Jeff's dreams had come true.

She took the picture up and examined it closely. It was the picture of a girl sitting on a table, a lariat in one hand and a quirt in the other, and the background presented Mesa City's idea of an Italian villa, with fluted columns, backed by some palms and a vista of lake. How well she remembered that gray painted screen and the ornate wicker chair and table which were its inevitable accompaniment. They had served as a background for Pete Mulrennan in a Prince Albert coat, when he was elected mayor; for Jack Williams, the foreman of the "Lazy L" ranch, and his bride from Kinney; for Mrs. Brennan in her new black silk dress; for the Harbison twins and their cherubic mother. She put the photograph down, and her head sank forward on her arms in mute rebellion. In her sleep she had murmured Cort's name, and Jeff had heard her. But she knew that in itself this was not enough to have caused the breach. What else had he heard? Jeff had tired of her--that was all--had tired of being married to a graven image, to a mere semblance of the woman he had thought she was. She could not blame him for that. It was his right to be tired of her if he chose.

It was the sudden revelation of the actual state of her mind with regard to Cortland which had given her the first suggestion of her true bearings--that and the careless chatter of the people of their set in which Mrs. Cheyne was leading. Cortland had guessed the truth which she had been so resolutely hiding from herself. She loved Jeff--had always loved him--and would until the end of time. Like the chemist who for months has been seeking the solution of a problem, she had found the acid which had magically liberated the desired element; the acid was Jealousy, and, after all dangerous vapors had passed, Love remained in the retort, elemental and undefiled. The simplicity of the revelation was as beautiful as it was mystifying. Had she by some fortuitous accident succeeded in transmuting some baser metal into gold, she could not have been more bewildered. Of course, Jeff could not know. To him she was still the Graven Image, the pretty Idol, the symbol of what might have been. How could he guess that his Idol had been made flesh and blood--that now she waited for him, no longer a symbol of lost illusions, but just a woman--his wife. She raised her head at last, sighed deeply, and put the photograph in the drawer of the desk. As she did so, the end of a small battered tin box protruded. She remembered it at once--for in it Jeff had always kept the letters and papers which referred to his birth and babyhood. She had looked them over before with Jeff, but it was almost with a feeling of timidity at an intrusion that she took the box out and opened it now. The papers were ragged, soiled, and stained with dampness and age, and the torn edges had been joined with strips of court-plaster. There were two small portraits taken by a photographer in Denver. Camilla took the photographs in her fingers and looked at them with a new interest. One of the pictures was of a young woman of about Camilla's age, in a black beaded Jersey waist and a full overskirt. Her front hair was done in what was known as a "bang," and the coils were twisted high on top of her head. But even these disfigurements--according to the lights of a later generation--could not diminish the attractiveness of her personality. There was no denying the beauty of the face, the wistful eyes, the straight, rather short nose, the sensitive lips, and the deeply indented, well-made chin--none of the features in the least like Jeff's except the last, which, though narrower than his, had the same firm lines at the angle of the jaw. It was not a weak face, nor a strong one, for whatever it gained at brows and chin it lost at the eyes and mouth.

But Jeff's resemblance to his father was remarkable. Except for the old-fashioned collar and "string" tie, the queerly cut coat, and something in the brushing of the hair, the figure in the other photograph was that of her husband in the life. She had discovered this when she and Jeff had looked into the tin box just after they were married, and had commented on it, but Jeff had said nothing in reply. He had only looked at the picture steadily for a moment, then rather abruptly taken it from her and put it away. From this Camilla knew that the thoughts of his mother were the only ones which Jeff had cared to select from the book of memory and tradition. Of his father he had never spoken, nor would speak. He would not even read again these letters which his mother had kept, wept over, and handed down to her son that the record of a man's ignominy might be kept intact for the generations to follow her.

It was, therefore, with a sense of awe, of intrusion upon the mystery of a sister's tragedy, that Camilla opened the letters again and read them. There were eight of them in all, under dates from May until October, 1875, all with the same superscription "Ned." As she read, Camilla remembered the whole sad story, and, with the face of the woman before her, was able to supply almost word for word the tender, passionate, bitter, forgiving letters which must have come between. She had pleaded with him in May to return to her, but in June, from New York, he had written her that he could not tell when he would go West again. In July he was sure he would not go West until the following year, if then. In August he sent her money--which she must have returned--for the next letter referred to it. In September his manner was indifferent--in October it was heartless. It had taken only six months for this man madly to love and then as madly to forget.