Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 30

Then Agatha remembered the task that she had in hand. It was a very inauspicious moment to set about it, but that could not be helped, and even for Gregory's own sake she felt that she must win him over.

"There is one way, Gregory, in which I don't think it ought to be done,"

she said. "You a.s.sumed Mr. Wyllard's obligations when you took the farm, and I think you should keep the two Morans."

Hawtrey started. "Ah!" he replied. "Mrs. Hastings has been setting you on; I partly expected it."

"She told me," Agatha admitted. "Unless you will look at the thing as I do, I could almost wish she hadn't. The thought of that man's wife shut up in the woods all winter only to find that what she has had to bear has all been thrown away troubles me. Now Wyllard promised to keep those men on, didn't he?"

"There was no regular engagement so far as I can make out."

"Still, Moran seems to have understood that he was to be kept on."

"Yes," replied Hawtrey, "he evidently does. If the market had gone with us I'd have fallen in with his views. As it hasn't, every man's wages count."

Agatha was conscious of a little thrill of repugnance. Of late Gregory's ideas had frequently jarred on her.

"Does that release you?"

Hawtrey did not answer this.

"I'll keep those men on if you want me to," he promised.

Agatha winced at this. She had discovered that she must not look for too much from Gregory, but to realize that he had practically no sense of moral obligation, and could be influenced to do justice only by the expectation of obtaining her favor positively hurt her.

"I want them kept on, but I don't want you to do it for that reason,"

she said. "Can't you grasp the distinction, Gregory?"

A trace of darker color dyed Hawtrey's face, but while she was a little surprised at the evidence that he felt her rebuke, he looked at her steadily. He had not thought much about her during the last month, but now the faint scorn in her voice aroused his resentment.

"Now," he said, "there are just three reasons, Aggy, why you should have troubled yourself about this thing. You are, perhaps, a little sorry for Moran's wife, but as you haven't even seen her that can hardly count for much. The next is, that you don't care to see me doing what you regard as a shabby thing; perhaps it is a shabby thing in some respects, but I feel it's justifiable. Of course, if that's your reason there's a sense in which, while not exactly complimentary--it's consoling."

He broke off, and looked at her with a question in his eyes, and it cost Agatha an effort to meet his. She was not prudish or overconscious of her own righteousness, but once or twice, after the shock of her disillusionment in regard to him had lessened, she had dreamed of the possibility of endowing him little by little with some of the qualities she had once fancied he possessed, and, as she vaguely thought of it, rehabilitating him. Now, however, the thing seemed impossible, and, what was more, the desire to bring it about had gone. Hateful as the situation was becoming, she was honest, and she could not let him credit her with a motive that had not influenced her.

In the meanwhile, her very coldness and aloofness stirred desire in the man, and she shrank as she saw a spark of pa.s.sion kindling in his eyes.

She recognized that there was a strain of grossness in him.

"No," she responded, "that reason was not one which had any weight with me."

Hawtrey's face darkened. "Then," he said grimly, "we'll get on to the third. Wyllard's credit is a precious thing to you; sooner than anything should cast a stain on it you would beg a favor from--me. You have set him up on a pedestal, and it would hurt you if he came down. Considering everything, it's a remarkably curious situation."

Agatha grew pale. Gregory was horribly right, for she had no doubt now that he had merely thrust upon her a somewhat distressing truth. It was to save Wyllard's credit, and for that alone, that she had undertaken this most unpleasant task. She did not answer, and Hawtrey stood up.

"Wyllard has his faults, but there's this in his favor--he keeps a promise," he said. "One has a certain respect for a person who never goes back upon his word. Well, because I really think he would like it, I'll keep those men."

He paused for a moment, as if to let her grasp the drift of his words, and then turned to her with something that startled her in his voice and manner. "The question is--are you willing to emulate his example?"

Agatha shrank from the glow in his eyes. "Oh!" she broke out, "you cannot urge me now--after what you said."

Hawtrey laughed harshly. "Well," he said, "I'll come for my answer very shortly. It seems that you and Wyllard attach a great deal of importance to a moral obligation--and I must remind you that the time agreed upon is almost up."

Agatha sat very still for perhaps half a minute, while a sense of dismay took possession of her. There was no doubt that Gregory's retort was fully warranted. She had insisted upon his carrying out an obligation which would cost him something, not because she took pleasure in seeing him do what was honorable, but to preserve the credit of another man.

And now it was with intense repugnance that she recognized that there was apparently no escaping from the obligation she had incurred.

Gregory's att.i.tude was perfectly natural and logical. She had promised to marry him, and he had saddled himself with a load of debt on her account, but the slight pity and tenderness that she had felt for him a few minutes earlier had utterly disappeared. Indeed, she felt that she almost hated him. His face had grown hard and almost brutal, and there was a look she shrank from in his eyes.

She rose with trembling limbs.

"Do you wish to speak to Mrs. Hastings?" she asked.

Hawtrey's lip curled. "No," he said, "if she'll excuse me, I don't think I do. If you tell her you have been successful, she'll probably be quite content."

Agatha went out without another word. Hawtrey lighted his pipe and stretched himself out in his chair, when he heard the wagon drive away a few minutes later. He did not like Mrs. Hastings, and had a suspicion that she had no great regard for him, but he was conscious of a grim satisfaction. There was, though it seldom came to the surface, a current of crude brutality in his nature, and it was active now. When Agatha had first come from England the change in her had been a shock to him, and it would not have cost him very much to let her go. Since then, however, her coldness and half-perceived disdain had angered him, and the interview which was just past had left him in an unpleasant mood. Though it was, perhaps, the last effect he would have expected, it had stirred him to desire a fulfillment of her pledge. It was consoling to feel that he could exact the keeping of her promise. His face grew coa.r.s.er as he a.s.sured himself of his claim, but he had never realized the s.h.i.+ftiness and instability of his own character. It was his misfortune that the impulses which swayed him one day had generally changed the next.

This became apparent when, having occasion to drive in to the elevators on the railroad a week later, he called at a store to make one or two purchases. The man who kept the store laid a package on the counter.

"I wonder if you'd take this along to Miss Creighton as a favor," he said. "She wrote for the things, and Elliot was to take them out, but I guess he forgot. Anyway, he didn't call."

Hawtrey told the clerk to put the package in his wagon. He had scarcely seen Sally since his recovery, and he suddenly remembered that, after all, he owed her a good deal, and that she was very pretty. Besides, one could talk to Sally without feeling the restraint that Agatha's manner usually laid on him.

The storekeeper laid an open box upon the counter.

"I guess you're going to be married by and by," he said. Hawtrey was thinking of Sally then, and the question irritated him.

"I don't know that it concerns you, but in a general way it's probable,"

he replied.

"Well," said the storekeeper good-humoredly, "a pair of these mittens would make quite a nice present for a lady. Smartest thing of the kind I've ever seen here; choicest Alaska fur."

Hawtrey bought a pair, and the storekeeper took a fur cap out of another box.

"Now," he said, "this is just the thing she'd like to go with the mittens. There's style about that cap; feel the gloss of it."

Hawtrey bought the cap, and smiled as he swung himself up into his wagon. Gloves are not much use in the prairie frost, and mittens, which are not divided into fingerstalls, will within limits fit almost anybody. This, he felt, was fortunate, for he was not quite sure that he meant to give them to Agatha.

It was bitterly cold, and the pace the team made was slow, for the snow was loose and too thin for a sled of any kind. Night had closed down and Hawtrey was suffering from the cold, when at last a birch bluff rose out of the waste in front of him. It cut black against the cold blueness of the sky and the spectral gleam of snow, but when he had driven a little further a stream of ruddy orange light appeared in the midst of it. A few minutes later he pulled his team up in front of a little log-built house, and getting down with difficulty saw the door open as he approached it. Sally stood in the entrance silhouetted against a blaze of cheerful light.

"Oh!" she cried. "Gregory!"

Hawtrey recognized the thrill in her voice, and took both her hands, as he had once been in the habit of doing.

"Will you let me in?" he asked.

The girl laughed in a strained fas.h.i.+on. She had been a little startled, and was not quite sure yet as to how she should receive him; but Hawtrey drew her in.

"The old folks are out," she said. "They've gone over to Elliot's for supper. He's bringing us a package."

Hawtrey, who explained that he had the parcel, let her hands go, and sat down somewhat limply. He had come suddenly out of the bitter frost into the little, brightly-lighted, stove-warmed room. The comfort and cheeriness of it appealed to him.

"This looks very cozy after my desolate room at the Range," he remarked.