The Trail of Conflict Part 30

"I have something to say to you, Jerry."

To the girl's taut nerves it was the voice of the conqueror laying down terms of surrender and clemency. In a flash she was back in the library of the Manor, hearing Steve's cool, determined voice announce, "I shall consider myself in a position to dictate terms to one member of the family." If he had meant separation then, what would he mean now with her silly elopement declaration of the night before to infuriate him?

Was he about to reproach her again for that? Felice had supplied the last shred of evidence he needed when she produced the hat, if he needed more than her own statement to the brakeman to convict her. Her anger flamed. He shouldn't get a chance to indict her. To put one's opponent on the defense meant strategic advantage. Before he could speak she fended:

"You can't reproach me for last night, Steve, after--after what I saw when I came into this room. Honors are even," flippantly.

He caught her by the shoulders and looked steadily into her angry eyes.

They met his defiantly. His voice was grave as he probed:

"After last night and--and this morning, Jerry, do you still--still want to go on with it?"

"Go on with it? Do you--you mean our comedy of marriage? Why not?

'Rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.'

You see I have contracted Tommy's pernicious habit of borrowing from the cla.s.sics when I wish to express myself with force and distinction. Let me go!"

Courtlandt's grip on her shoulders tightened. His face was white. There was a rigidity about his jaws which should have warned her.

"Flippancy won't save you. You are to listen to me now, girl."

"While you boast to me again as you did last night that you had not made love to another woman? Not a chance!" she twisted away from him and gained the threshold of her own room. "Don't--don't let me keep you from your alluring--friend," she flung back at him before she closed and locked her door on the inside with grating emphasis.

Then she listened with hands clasped tight over her heart. The anger which was so foreign to her character had been a mere flash in the pan.

Already she was sorry and humiliated and ashamed. She had maintained always that a girl who could not keep her temper, who wrangled, belonged in the quarter where shrewish women, with shawls over their heads and forlorn little babies forever under their feet, fought and brawled.

Hadn't she seen them in her childhood? And she--she who thought herself superior hadn't been much better under the skin. She could have scratched Felice's eyes out and as for Steve----

Where was he now? The living-room was portentously still. Had he gone?

Why couldn't she have listened to his explanation, have a.s.sumed a friendliness which this new, disturbing riot in her veins made impossible as a reality? Her eyes which still smarted with unshed tears traveled round the dainty, chintz-hung boudoir. In a detached way she noted that the one picture on the wall, which served as the key-note to the color scheme of the room, needed straightening. She must speak to Ming Soy----Her heart hopped to her throat, then did a tail-spin to her toes as a low, stern voice outside her room commanded:

"Open the door, Jerry."

She stood rigid, motionless.

"Open the door!" there was an undercurrent in Courtlandt's words which seemed to paralyze her muscles. In a voice the more compelling because of its repression he threatened, "If you don't open it at once--I'll break it in!" The shake he gave the barrier between them broke the spell which held the girl. She turned the key and flung open the door.

With a sudden fierce movement he caught her hands. She had a confused sense of flinging herself against an inflexible, determined will as she struggled to free them. She met his steady, dominant eyes.

"Steve! What--what rank melodrama! Are you qualifying for the movies?"

she essayed a nonchalant tone which to her hypercritical senses seemed horribly frightened. "What--what do you want?"

"That door open. Nothing else--now," Courtlandt answered as he dropped her hands and turned away.

CHAPTER XXI

"What shall we do this afternoon, Jerry?" Peggy Glamorgan asked as she, her sister and Benson sat at luncheon three hours later. The table was spread on the broad, shadowy veranda on the north side of the ranch-house. The sun beat down upon fields and white roads; insects droned lazily to the accompaniment of the faint roar of the stream swollen by the heavy rain of the night before. "Ye G.o.ds! If here isn't Abdul the Great," she mocked saucily as Courtlandt appeared at the door.

"Are his humble slaves to be honored with his presence at the noonday meal? Allah, oh Allah! Jerry, aren't you overwhelmed at this tribute to our charms?"

"Can't a man lunch beneath his own vine and fig tree without creating a panic? From now on I shall make it a daily rite that you may get used to it," Steve laughed. He laid his hand on Benson's shoulder. "Tommy, you're a hero. Slippy Bend is agog with admiration. What the populace can't think of to say in praise of you the deputy sheriff supplies in the most colorful vernacular the locality produces. Don't run; I won't say any more," as Benson, fiery red, half rose from his chair. Steve seated himself opposite Jerry.

She observed him resentfully from behind a screen of lashes. He looked more care-free and debonair than she had ever seen him while her heart still contracted suffocatingly at any thought of the morning. It was just like a man, nothing went deep, she thought. Ming Soy fluttered about in devoted antic.i.p.ation of his needs; Peggy poured cream into his tea with a lavish hand. Benson laughed.

"You're a master tactician, old dear. You let your light s.h.i.+ne upon us but seldom and behold the devotion when you do appear. Alas, 'Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare.' I'll say your beatific expression would put the twinkle-twinkle-little-star effect out of business. Got a load off your mind, haven't you? Slowman tells me that the Shorthorns are back to a hoof, that our temperamental late manager is being securely, if not luxuriously accommodated with quarters in the jail and that--that Mrs. Denbigh is en route to the effete East via Slippy Bend.

Is my information correct?" He stole a surrept.i.tious glance at Jerry who, with the aid of a pink-tipped finger, was nonchalantly sailing rose petal boats on the sea of her crystal finger-bowl.

"It is. The tangle of the last few months is straightening out. From now on I'll subscribe to that bit of philosophy of Doc Rand's, 'Things have a marvelous, unbelievable way of coming right.' The late unpleasantness has resulted in one thing: we have an all-American outfit on the Double O ranch on whose honor I'd stake my last dollar. They may come of varied and contending races but when it comes to ideals of service and loyalty to the nation, they're united. Next week I'm going to Uncle Nick's camp in the mountains to inspect the silver mine, and incidentally to fish. There is a lake there where the trout are so thick they form bread-lines to get a chance at the bait."

"You tell 'em!" jeered Benson.

"It's a fact. I want to shake the memory of the last two months, to get away so that I can come back and make a fresh start. I'll leave you in charge of the ranch, Tommy."

"'When Caesar says, "Do this," it is performed.'"

"What's on for this afternoon? Let's do something. I want to get yesterday out of my mind."

"Miss Glamorgan and I thought--I thought--that if you didn't need me, we'd ride over to Buzzard's Hollow; that spot seems to be occupying stage center now. I'll personally conduct you and Mrs. Steve over the abandoned aeroplane if you'll mosey along with us."

Jerry tried to control a shudder. She wondered if she could ever again hear the name of the hollow without seeing a close-up of Beechy and Ranlett and that mutilated calf. She sensed Courtlandt's quick look at her and answered hurriedly:

"Don't count me in. I shan't ride again until--until I have forgotten the hours I spent in the saddle yesterday. Buzzard's Hollow as an objective leaves me cold. If no one else wants the roadster I shall drive over to the B C to inquire for Mrs. Carey. Mother Eagan may allow me to see the baby."

Jerry could have cheerfully bitten out her too confiding tongue when an hour later she found Steve waiting beside the roadster at the front door. He had changed from his usual riding togs to sport clothes. He reddened under her surprised eyes.

"Have you gone saddle shy too?" she asked flippantly to conceal her frightened suspicion that he was going with her.

"No, but I must see Beechy and as you were going to Bear Creek I thought we'd go along together."

"But--I--would rather----"

"Get in, please. It will take time to get to the B C by the road in this car, which is far from being the last word in speed-limit violators."

With teeth set in her lips to steady them Jerry stepped into the roadster. What motive was back of Steve's decision to accompany her, she wondered, as the car shot smoothly ahead under his skilful driving. She regarded him covertly from under the brim of her rose-colored hat. He was gazing straight ahead, his brows knit in a slight frown. The silence between them seemed heavy with portent. She must say something. From far off came a faint whistle.

"Is that the east-bound train?" she asked and then wished fervently that she hadn't.

"Yes. Just pulling out of Slippy Bend. Felice is on it. Jerry, I want you to understand that the situation you stumbled on this morning was merely some of her theatrical clap-trap. When I told her about Phil she flung herself into my arms and pretended to be overcome."

"Don't apologize," the girl mocked, then as she caught a dangerous gleam in his eyes she abandoned thin ice. "Has Mr. Denbigh----"

"I got Phil's mother on long distance soon after midnight. Gerrish took him--went East in the early morning."

"Was he a dear friend of yours?"

"No. He was in my cla.s.s at college but he was always aloof, unfriendly.

While the rest of us were in athletics he was devoting himself to his violin. We thought him indifferent but I understand now that his position had corroded his sensitive heart."