A Damaged Reputation Part 27

Barbara nodded. "No doubt," she said. "We will let it go at that. As you may have noticed, we are now and then almost indecently candid in this country, but I agree with my brother-in-law who says that n.o.body could make an Englishman talk unless he wanted to."

"Silence is reputed to be golden," said Brooke, reflectively, "and I really think there are cases when it is. At least, there was one I figured in when some two or three minutes' unchecked speech cost me more dollars than I have made ever since. It happened in England, and I merely favored another man with my frank opinion of him. After a thing of that kind one is apt to be guarded."

"I think you should cultivate a sense of proportion. Can one make up for a single mistake in one direction by erring continually in the opposite one? Still, that is not a question we need go into now. You expect to get the rope across the canon very shortly?"

"Yes," said Brooke, whose expression changed suddenly, "I do."

"And then?"

Brooke, who felt the girl's eyes upon him, and understood what she meant, made a little gesture. "I don't know. I shall probably take the trail again. It does not matter greatly where it may lead me."

There was a curious little vibration he could not quite repress in his voice, and both he and his companion were, under the circ.u.mstances, silent a trifle too long, for there are times when silence is very expressive. Then it was Barbara who spoke, though she felt that what she said was not especially appropriate.

"You will be sorry to go?"

Brooke looked at her steadily, with his lips set, and, though she did not see this, his fingers quivering a little, for he realized at last what it would cost him to leave her. For a moment a hot flood of pa.s.sion and longing threatened to sweep him away, but he held it in check, and Barbara only noticed the grimness of his face.

"What answer could I make? The conventional one demanded scarcely fits the case," he said, and his laugh rang hollow.

"But the dam will not be finished," said Barbara, who realized that she had made an unfortunate start.

Again Brooke sat silent. It seemed folly to abandon his purpose, and he wondered whether he would have sufficient strength of will to go away.

It was also folly to stay and sink further under the girl's influence, when the revelation he shrank from would, if he persisted in his attempt to recover his dollars, become inevitable. Still, once he left the Canopus he must go back to a life of hards.h.i.+p and labor, and, in spite of the humiliation and fear of the future he often felt, the present was very pleasant. On the other hand there was only scarcity, exposure to rain and frost, and bitter, hopeless toil. He sat very still with one hand closed, not daring to look at his companion until she spoke again.

"You say you do not know where the trail may lead you, and you do not seem to care. One would fancy that was wrong," she said.

"Why?"

Barbara turned a little, and looked at him with a faint sparkle in her eyes. "In this province the trail the resolute man takes usually leads to success. We want bridges and railroad trestles, forests cleared, and the valleys lined with roads. You can build them."

Brooke shook his head, though her confidence in him, as well as her optimism, had its due effect.

"I wish I was a little more sure," he said. "The difficulty, as I think I once pointed out, is that one needs dollars to make a fair start with."

"They are, at least, not indispensable, as the history of most of the men who have done anything worth while in the province shows. Isn't there a certain satisfaction in starting with everything against one?"

"Afterwards, perhaps. That is, if one struggles through. There is, however, one learns by experience, really very little satisfaction at the time, especially if one scarcely gets beyond the start at all."

Barbara smiled a little, though she looked at him steadily. "You," she said, "will, I think, go a long way. In fact, if it was a sword I gave you, I should expect it of you."

Brooke came very near losing his head just then, though he realized that, after all, the words implied little more than a belief in his capabilities, and for a few insensate moments he almost decided to stay at the Canopus and make the most of his opportunities. Saxton, he reflected, might put sufficient pressure upon Devine to extort the six thousand dollars from him without the necessity for his part becoming apparent at all. With that sum in his hands there was, he felt, very little he could not attain, and then he shook off the deluding fancy, for it once more became apparent that the deed, which gave Saxton the hold he wished for upon Devine would, even if she never heard of it, stand as barrier between Barbara Heathcote and him.

"One feels inclined to wonder now and then whether success does not occasionally, at least, cost the man who achieves it more than it is worth," he said. "The actual record of the leaders one is expected to look up to might, in that connection, provide one with a fund of somewhat astonis.h.i.+ng information."

Barbara made a little gesture of impatience. "Is the poor man the only one who can be honest?"

"One would, at least, feel inclined to fancy that the man who is unduly honest runs a serious risk of remaining poor."

"I think that is an argument I have very little sympathy with," said Barbara. "It is, you see, so easy for the incapable to impeach the successful man's honesty. I might even go a little further and admit that it is an att.i.tude I scarcely expected from you."

Brooke smiled somewhat bitterly. "You will, however, remember that I have made no attempt to persuade you of my own integrity."

Just then, as it happened, Mrs. Devine came into the verandah with a packet in her hand.

"These are the papers the man tried to steal," she said. "Since you insist upon going back to the canon to-day I wonder if you would take care of them?"

Brooke gasped, and felt the veins swell on his forehead as he looked at her. "You wish me to take them away?"

"Of course! My nerves are really horribly unsettled, and I was sent to the mountains for quietness. How could any one expect me to get it when I couldn't even sleep for fear of that man or some one else coming back for these doc.u.ments?"

"They are, I think, of considerable importance to your husband," said Brooke.

"That is precisely why I would like to feel that they were safe in your tent. n.o.body would expect you to have them there."

Brooke turned his head a little so that he could see Barbara's face.

"I appreciate your confidence," he said, and the girl noticed that his voice was a trifle hoa.r.s.e. "Still, I must point out that I am almost a stranger to Mr. Devine and you."

Barbara smiled a little, but there was something that set the man's heart beating in her eyes.

"I am not sure that everybody would be so willing to make the most of the fact, but I feel quite sure my sister's confidence is warranted,"

she said. "That, of course, does not sound very nice, but you have made it necessary."

Brooke, who glanced curiously at the single seal, laid down the packet, and Mrs. Devine smiled. "_I_ feel ever so much easier now that is off my mind," she said. "Still, I shall expect you to sleep with the papers under your pillow."

She went out, and left him and Barbara alone again, but Brooke knew that the struggle was over and the question decided once for all. The girl's trust in him had not only made those papers inviolable so far as he was concerned, but had rendered a breach with Saxton unavoidable. He knew now that he could never do what the latter had expected from him.

"You appeared almost unwilling to take the responsibility," said the girl.

Brooke smiled curiously. "I really think that was the case," he said.

"In fact, your confidence almost hurt me. One feels the obligation of proving it warranted--in every respect--you see. That is partly why I shall go away the day we swing the first load of props across the canon."

Barbara felt a trace of disconcertion. "But my brother-in-law may ask you to do something else for him."

"I scarcely think that is likely," said Brooke, with a little dry smile.

Barbara said nothing further, and when she left him Brooke was once more sensible of a curious relief. It would, he knew, cost him a strenuous effort to go away, but he would, at least, be freed from the horrible necessity of duping the girl, who, it seemed, believed in him.

When Jimmy arrived that evening to accompany him back to his tent at the canon, and expressed his satisfaction at the fact that he did not appear very much the worse, he smiled a trifle drily.

"That," he said, "is a little astonis.h.i.+ng. I am, I think, warranted in believing myself six thousand dollars worse off than when I went away."

Jimmy stared at him incredulously.

"Well," he said, "I never figured you had that many, and I don't quite see how you could have let them get away from you here. Something you didn't expect has happened?"

Brooke appeared reflective. "I'm not quite sure whether I expected it or not, but I almost hope I did," he said.