Chapter VIII: Part 8

She looked down, turning the ferrule of her umbrella on the toe of her boot.

"Suppose some one else bought it?"

"I hadn't thought of that. Who?"

"Me."

Jeff started forward in his chair, his eyes blazing--then he took a step or two away from her.

"You?"

She nodded pertly. He turned and looked at her over his shoulder. Then, with a warm impulse, he seized both of her hands in his and held them tightly in his own.

"That's white of you, Rita. You're the real thing. I'll swear you are--the Real Thing--you've got sand, too, a lot of it, and I like you for it. It's worth while getting in a hole to find out who your friends are. I won't forget this soon."

She disengaged her hands.

"Thanks," she said calmly. "Do you agree?"

"Agree? To what?"

"To let me buy that stock?"

He straightened and turned to his desk, uncertainly fingering some papers there. He was silent so long that she repeated the question.

"No," he said at last.

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't want you to."

"I don't understand. In New York you were willing to have me in with you. Why do you object now? Any security your banks will take ought to be good enough for me. Any security my cousin Cornelius Bent wants to buy ought to be worth having."

"It is--to him."

"Then why not to me?--it's all in the family."

He looked at her blankly a moment and then laughed and shook his head.

"No--there's too much risk."

"I expected to risk something."

He sat down in his chair before her and put his hands over hers.

"See here, Rita. You'll have to let me think this thing out and take my own time. I never put my friends into anything I don't believe in myself. If you're looking for an investment here I'll find you something. I know a dozen good things."

"You can't prevent my getting that stock if I want it," she broke in.

"The Amalgamated can."

"I'll go to the General and tell him I insist on having it. He's a little afraid of me."

He laughed. "He ought to be. I am, too." Jeff rose and took up his hat and Rita Cheyne's traveling bag. "There's one thing sure: I'm not going to talk about this any more--not now. You're tired. I've got to get you fixed up somehow. You know I started building a place up in the canon, but it's not finished yet. Mrs. Brennan is away. There's nothing for it but a hotel, I guess."

"Oh, I don't care. I'm not going to be discouraged. I warn you I always have my own way--in the end--in all things."

He chose to disregard the significance of the remark and showed her out. On their way up the street the spirit moved him to apologize again.

"There's a bathroom at the Kinney House. I'd better take you there. It's pretty well kept. Camilla stayed there once. I wish she was here."

"You do?" quizzically.

"Why--yes."

"Then why don't you have her here?" she asked suddenly.

A shade passed over Jeff's face. "We went East for the winter," he said slowly. "I had to come back here. My wife likes it in New York. It--it wasn't advisable for her to come."

"Thanks, I knew that before," she said slowly. Further conversation was interrupted by their arrival at the Kinney House, a frame structure at the upper end of Main Street, where it stood in lonely dignity, quite dwarfing its nearest neighbors, which clambered part of the way up the slope and then paused--as though in sudden diffidence before the majesty of its three-storied preeminence. It wore at this time a coat of yellow paint of a somewhat bilious hue, but its cornices, moldings, and the rather coquettish ornaments about the "Ladies Entrance" were painted white. The letters C-A-F-E (without the accent), painted ostentatiously upon a window, gave a touch of modernity, and the words "Ladies' Parlor" advised the wearied traveler that here was to be found a haven for the females of refined and retiring dispositions. The sound of a piano was heard from that chaste apartment as Mrs. Cheyne registered her long angular signature beneath that of "Pat O'Connell, Santa Fe"; and the strains of "The Maiden's Prayer" came forth, followed presently by the "Carnival of Venice." Mrs. Cheyne smiled her tolerance.

"Do you want a room by the day, week or month, ma'am?" asked the clerk.

"I'm a little uncertain," she said; "I may be here only for a day or two or I may be here"--and she glanced at Jeff--"for a month--or even longer."

"Mrs. Cheyne is looking into some mining properties," said Jeff with an amused air. But when his companion followed the clerk up the stairway, jangling a key with a huge brass tag, Jeff departed thoughtfully. So far as he could see, Mrs. Cheyne had come to Mesa City with the express intention of playing the devil. The magnificence of her financial offer, while it dazzled, had not blinded him. But he was truly bewildered by her audacity, disarmed by the recklessness of her amiability. She always got what she wanted in the end, she said. What was it she wanted? Himself? He couldn't help thinking so, but it made him feel like a fool. In the East she had led him or as she led other men on, for the mere joy of the game, and he had followed her cautiously, aware of his own insufficiency but delighting in the opportunities her society afforded him to even his accounts with Camilla. Both had called their relation friendship for want of a better word, but Jeff knew that friendship had another flavor. The night when he had last visited her he had played his cards and had called that bluff. But to-day he realized that she had seen his raise and had now removed the limit from the game. From now on it was to be for table stakes, with Rita Cheyne dealing the cards.

And what did her amazing financial proposition mean? Could it be genuine? He knew that she was very wealthy--wealthy in the New York way--but it was not in his experience that sentiment and finance had anything in common. If her offers were genuine, her confidence in his financial integrity and in him was extraordinary. If they were not, her confidence in herself was likewise extraordinary.

Jeff smiled to himself a little uneasily. What would Mesa City be saying about the unexplained arrival of a captivating female from New York who sought him out at his office and whose claims upon his society (unless he fled) could not be denied. There was no chance for him to flee, even if he wished, the condition of his business requiring his presence here for at least a few days, and the trunk check in his hand reminded him that he had promised Rita Cheyne her trunk immediately, so that she might ride with him that very afternoon. What was to be done? Her ingenuity had always surprised him, and her resources were of infinite variety. To tell the truth, he was afraid of her, and was willing for the first time to acknowledge it frankly to himself. She interested him--had always interested him--but it seemed to be more the interest of curiosity than that of any real affiliation. To be with Rita Cheyne was like going to a three-ring circus, where one is apt to lose sight of the refined performance on the stage just in front in bewilderment over the acrobatic feats of the lady in spangles at one side. What was her real reason for coming West to Mesa City? He gave it up and turned in at the office, gave the trunk check to a clerk, and in a moment had taken up his business at the point where Mrs. Cheyne had interrupted him.

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

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

*CHAPTER XX*

_*La Femme Propose*_

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

Mrs. Cheyne emerged from the scrub-oak delightedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Feel what?"

"Spooky."

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

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

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

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

"What are you afraid of?"

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

"You're lucky."

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

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

"Why not?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jeff thrust forth a hand and put it over hers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes--I am."

"Was, you mean."

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

"Did you miss me?"

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

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

"What is your purpose?" he asked.

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

"Have you got me classified?"

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

"I'm not running away very fast."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'd rather you wouldn't."

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

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

"What are you going to do?"

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

"What is it to you, Rita?"

She took a quick glance at him before she replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jeff looked at her uncertainly and then laughed noisily.

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

She smiled and frowned at the same time.

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

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

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

*CHAPTER XXI*

_*L'homme Dispose*_

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

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

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

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

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

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

She stopped indignantly.

"Don't you believe in me?"

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

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

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

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

"You're talking nonsense."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's not true now."

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

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

"There's a way to prove that."

"How?"

"This!"

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

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

"You'll kiss me."

"No--never, not after that."

"After what?"

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

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

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

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

"Will you tell me you love me?"

"No. I loathe you."

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

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

"Why, Rita----" he began.

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

"Where?"

"To Mesa City."

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

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

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

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

The sobs began anew.

"How--how could you--treat me so?"

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

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

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

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

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

"You forgave me once."

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

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

"Despises----"

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

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

"Don't cry, Rita."

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

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

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

Wray's incomprehension was deeper.

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

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

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

"What on earth are you talking about?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Your gratitude takes a curious form."

He held up a hand in protest.

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

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

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

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

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

But he made no reply.

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

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

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

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

He nodded.

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

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

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

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

Jeff got down and stood beside her.

"Do be sensible, Rita."

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

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

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

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

"Why--do you hate her so?"

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

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

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

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

"You've made a friend."

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

"Oh, yes, you are. To-morrow we'll----"

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

"If I can."

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

Jeff shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*CHAPTER XXII*

*PRIVATE MATTERS*

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

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

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