The Iron Trail Part 19

"I shall not allow that woman under the same roof with Natalie."

"As usual, you choose the most inconvenient occasion for insisting upon your personal dislikes."

"My dislike has nothing to do with the matter. I overlooked her behavior with you last year--as I have overlooked a good many things in the past--but this is asking too much."

Gordon's coldness matched her own as he said:

"I repeat, this is no time for jealousy--"

"Jealousy! It's an insult to Natalie."

"Miss Golden is one of our largest stockholders."

"That's not true! I had Denny look up the matter."

"So!" Gordon flared up angrily. "Denny has been showing you the books, eh! He had no more right to do that than you had to pry into my affairs. While Miss Golden's investment may not be so large as some others', she has influential friends. She did yeoman service in the cause, and I can't allow your foolish fancies to interfere with my plans."

"Fancies!" cried the woman, furiously. "You behaved like a school-boy with her. It was disgraceful. I refuse to let her a.s.sociate with my daughter."

"Aren't we drawing rather fine distinctions?" Gordon's lip curled. "In the first place, Natalie has no business here. Since she came, uninvited, for the second time, she must put up with what she finds. I warned you last summer that she might suspect--"

"She did. She does. She discovered the truth a year ago." Mrs. Gerard's usually impa.s.sive face was distorted and she voiced her confession with difficulty.

"The devil!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Gordon.

The woman nodded. "She accused me last night. I tried to--lie, but--G.o.d! How I have lived through these hours I'll never know."

"Hm-m!" Gordon reflected, briefly. "Perhaps, after all, it's just as well that she knows; she would have found it out sooner or later, and there's some satisfaction in knowing that the worst is over."

Never before had his callous cynicism been so frankly displayed. It chilled her and made the plea she was about to voice seem doubly difficult.

"I wish I looked upon the matter as you do," she said, slowly. "But other people haven't the same social ideas as we. I'm--crushed, and she--Poor child! I don't know how she had the courage to face it. Now that she has heard the truth from my own lips I'm afraid it will kill her."

Gordon laughed. "Nonsense! Natalie is a sensible girl. Disillusionment is always painful, but never fatal. Sooner or later the young must confront the bald facts of life, and I venture to say she will soon forget her school-girl morality. Let me explain my views of--"

"Never!" cried the woman, aghast. "If you do I shall--" She checked herself and buried her face in her hands. "I feel no regrets for myself--for I drifted with my eyes open--but this--this is different.

Don't you understand? I am a mother. Or are you dead to all decent feeling?"

"My dear, I'm the most tender-hearted of men. Of course I shall say nothing, if you prefer, for I am subservient to your commands in all things. But calm yourself. What is done cannot be undone."

In more even tones Mrs. Gerard said, "You seem to think the matter is ended, but it isn't. Natalie will never allow us to continue this way, and it isn't just to her that we should. We can't go on, Curtis."

"You mean I must marry you?"

She nodded.

He rose and paced the room before answering. "I always supposed you understood my views on that subject. Believe me, they are unalterable, and in no way the result of a pose."

"Nevertheless, for my sake and Natalie's you will do it. I can't lose the one thing I love best in the world."

"It would seem that Natalie has filled your head with silly notions,"

he exclaimed, impatiently.

"She has awakened me. I have her life to consider as well as my own."

"We are all individuals, supreme in ourselves, responsible only to ourselves. We must all live our own lives; she cannot live yours, nor you hers."

"I am familiar with your arguments," Mrs. Gerard said, wearily, "but I have thought this all out and there is no other way."

He frowned in his most impressive manner and his chest swelled ominously.

"I will not be coerced. You know I can't be bullied into a thing. I deny that you have any right to demand--"

"I'm not demanding anything. I merely ask this--this favor, the first one I have ever asked. You see, my pride is crumbling. Don't answer now; let's wait until we are both calmer. The subject came up--at least she approached it, by asking about the coal claims. She is worried about them."

"Indeed?"

"She was told by a friend in the Land Office that our rights had been forfeited. I a.s.sured her--"

"I refused to heed the absurd rulings of the Department, if that is what she refers to."

"Then we--have lost?" Mrs. Gerard's pallor increased.

"Technically, yes! In reality I shall show that our t.i.tles were good and that our patents should issue."

"But"--the woman's bloodless fingers were tightly interlaced--"all I have, all Natalie has, is in those claims."

"Yes! And it would require another fortune the size of both to comply with the senseless vagaries of the Interior Department and to protect your interests. I grew weary of forever sending good hard-earned dollars after bad ones, merely because of the s.h.i.+fting whim of some theorist five thousand miles away."

"Then I am afraid--" Mrs. Gerard's voice trailed out miserably. "It is all we have, and you told me--"

Gordon broke in irritably: "My dear Gloria, spare me this painful faultfinding. If I can win for you, I shall do so, and then you will agree that I acted wisely. If I lose--it will merely be the luck of the average investor. We played for big returns, and of course the risks were great."

"But Mr. O'Neil told her his claims--"

Gordon's blazing eyes warned her. "O'Neil, eh? So, he is the 'friend in the Land Office'! No doubt he also gave Natalie the suggestion that led to her scene with you. Tell her to occupy herself less with affairs which do not concern her and more with her own conduct. Her actions with that upstart have been outrageous."

"What about your own actions with the Golden woman?" cried Mrs. Gerard, reverting with feminine insistence to the subject of their first difference. "What are you going to do about her?"

"Nothing."

"Remember, I refuse to share the same roof with her. You wouldn't ask it of your wife."

Now this second reference to a disagreeable subject was unfortunate.

Gordon was given to the widest vagaries of temper, and this interview had exasperated him beyond measure, for he was strained by other worries. He exploded harshly:

"Please remember that you are not my wife! My ideas on matrimony will never change. You ought to know by this time that I am granite."

"I can't give up Natalie. I would give up much, for we women don't change, but--"