Burned Bridges Part 16

"In a purely geographical sense?"

Her voice was tinged with gentle raillery.

"Perhaps," he answered noncommittally.

It dawned upon him that for all his gladness to see her--and he was glad--he nursed a tiny flame of resentment. He had come a long way measured on the map, and a far greater distance measured in human experience, in spiritual reckoning. If the old narrow faith had failed him he felt that slowly and surely he was acquiring a faith that would not fail him, because it was based on a common need of mankind. But he was still sure there must be a wide divergence in their outlook. He was getting his worldly experience, his knowledge of material factors, of men's souls and faiths and follies and ideals and weaknesses in a rude school at first hand--and Sophie had got hers out of books and logical deductions from critically a.s.sembled fact. There was a difference in the two processes. He knew, because he had tried both. And where the world at large faced him, and must continue to face him, like an enemy position, something to be stormed, very likely with fierce fighting, for Sophie Carr it had all been made easy.

So he did not follow up that conversational lead. He was not going to bare his soul offhand to gratify any woman's curiosity. It would be very easy to make a blithering a.s.s of himself again--with her--because of her. Already he was on his guard against that. His pride was alert.

Sophie stowed the canvas tool roll under the seat cus.h.i.+on. She climbed to her seat behind the steering column and turned to Thompson.

"Which way are you bound?" she asked. "I'll give you a lift, and we can talk."

"I'm on my way to San Francisco," he said. "But time is no object in my young life right now, or I'd take the Interurban instead of walking. It would be demoralizing to me, I'm afraid, to whiz down these roads in a machine like this."

Sophie shoved the opposite door open.

"Get in," she let a flavor of reproof creep into her tone. "Don't talk that sort of nonsense."

Thompson hesitated. He was suddenly uncomfortable, conscious of his dusty clothes somewhat the worse for wear, his shoes from which the pristine freshness had long vanished, the day-old stubble on his chin.

There was a depressing contrast between his outward condition and that of the smartly dressed girl whose gray eyes were resting curiously on him now.

"Do you make a practice of picking up tramps along the road?" he parried with an effort at lightness. He wanted to refuse outright, yet could not utter the words. "I'm not very presentable."

"Get in. Don't be silly," she said impatiently. "You don't think I've become a sn.o.b just because chance has pitchforked me into the ranks of the idle rich, do you?"

Thompson laughed awkwardly. There was real feeling in her tone, as if she had read correctly his hesitation and resented it. After all, why not? It would merely be an incident to Sophie Carr, and it would save him some hot and dusty miles. He got in.

"I'm quite curious to know where you've been and what you've been doing for the last year," she said, when the red car was once more rolling toward the city at a sedate pace. "And by the way, where did you learn to change a tire so smartly?"

"My last job," Thompson told her truthfully, "was was.h.i.+ng cars, greasing up, and changing tires in a country garage down in the San Juan." He paused for a moment. "Before that I was chaperon to a stable full of horses on a Salinas ranch. I've tried being a carpenter's helper, an a.s.sistant gardener, understudy to a suburban plumber--and other things too numerous to mention--in the last three months. I think the most satisfactory thing I've tackled was the woods up north, last fall."

"You must have acquired experience, at least, even if none of those things proved an efficient method of making money," she returned lightly.

"A man like me," he remarked, "has first to learn how to make a living before he can set about making money."

"Making money is relative. Quite often it merely means making a living with an extended horizon," she observed. "I know a man with a ten-thousand-dollar salary who finds it a living, no more."

"Poor devil," he drawled sardonically. "When I get into the ten-thousand-a-year cla.s.s I rather think it will afford me a few trifles beyond bare subsistence."

She smiled.

"Have you set that for a mark to shoot at?"

"I haven't set any limit," he replied. "I haven't got my sights adjusted yet."

"I can scarcely a.s.sure myself that you are really you," she said after a momentary silence. "I can't seem to disa.s.sociate you with Lone Moose and a blundering optimism, a mystical faith that the Lord would make things come out right if you only leaned on Him hard enough. Now your talk is flavored with both egotism and the bitterness of the cynic."

"How should a man talk?" he demanded. "Like a worm if he chance to be trodden on a few times? Does a man necessarily become cynical when he realizes that plugging from the bottom up is no child's play? As for egotism--Heaven knows you knocked that out of me pretty effectually when you left Lone Moose. You made me feel like a whipped puppy for months. I chucked myself out of the church because of that--that abased, disheartened feeling. For a year and a half I've been learning and discovering that life isn't a parlor game. Do you remember that letter you left with Cloudy Moon for me? I need only to recall a phrase here and there in that as a cure for incipient egotism. What do you think I should have become?" he flung at her, unconscious of the pa.s.sion in his voice, "A poor thing glad of a ride in your car? Or a confirmed optimist in overalls?"

Sophie gave him a queer sidelong glance.

"Can't you let the dead past bury its dead?" she asked quietly.

Thompson kept his eyes on the smooth, green-bordered road for a minute.

The quick wave of feeling pa.s.sed. He stifled it--indeed, felt ashamed for letting it briefly master him.

"Of course," he answered at last, and turned to her with a friendly quirk of his lips. "It is buried pretty deep one way and another, isn't it? And it would hardly be decent to exhume the remains. Shall we talk about the weather?"

"Don't be sarcastic," she reproved gently. "Save that to cope with dad.

He'll relish it coming from you."

"I don't know," Thompson said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't mind a chat with your father. We wouldn't agree on many things, by a good way, although I've discovered that some of his philosophy is sound enough. But I've got to make a move, and I'm so situated that I must make it quickly or not at all. I'm going to take the first north-bound steamer out of San Francisco. So I don't imagine Mr. Carr will have a chance at me soon."

"Oh, yes, he will," Sophie a.s.serted confidently. "In about twenty minutes."

Thompson looked at her, startled a little by this bland a.s.sertion.

"We'll be home in about twenty minutes," she explained.

"But I'm--why take the trouble?" he asked bluntly. "I'm out of your orbit entirely. Or do you want to exhibit me as a horrible example?"

"You're downright rude," she laughed. "Or you would be if you were serious. Do you mind coming to see dad? And I'd like to hear more about your trip across the mountains with Tommy Ashe."

Thompson p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

"Oh, you know about that, eh?" he remarked. "How--"

"Not as much as I'd like to," she interrupted. "Will you come?"

"Yes," he agreed. "But give a fellow a chance. Don't drag me into your home looking like this. I'm not vain, but I'd feel more comfortable in clean clothes. I s.h.i.+pped all my things into town. They should be in the express office now. I'll come this afternoon or this evening, whichever you say. Drop me off at the first carline."

"I'll do better than that," she declared. "I'll drive you downtown myself."

"But it isn't necessary," he persisted. "I don't want to take up all your time, and--"

"For the rest of this day," Sophie murmured, "I have absolutely nothing to do but kill time. I get restless, and being out in the car cures that feeling. Do you mind if I chauff you a few miles more or less? Don't be ungallant. I love to drive."

"Oh, well."

Thompson mentally threw up his hands. In that gracious mood Sophie was irresistible. He sank back in the thick, resilient upholstery and resolved to take what the G.o.ds provided--to dance as it were, and reckon with the piper when he presented his bill.

CHAPTER XVII

THE REPROOF COURTEOUS(?)