Vane of the Timberlands Part 38

"I did. I suppose you're going to propound another conundrum of a kind I've heard before--why you should have so many things you don't particularly need, while Miss Hartley must go on sewing when she's hardly able for it in her most unpleasant shack? I don't know whether the fact that you found a mine answers the question; but if it doesn't the thing's beyond your philosophy."

"Come off!" Vane bade him with signs of impatience. "There are times when your moralizing gets on one's nerves. Anyhow, I straightened out one difficulty--I found the rent man, who'd been round worrying her, and got rid of him."

Carroll groaned in mock dismay, which covered some genuine annoyance with himself; but Vane frowned.

"What's the matter?" he inquired. "Do you want a drink?"

"I'll get over it," Carroll informed him. "It isn't the first time I've suffered from the same complaint. But I'd like to point out that your chivalrous impulses may be the ruin of you some day. Why didn't you let Drayton settle with the man? You gave him a check, I suppose?"

"Sure. I'd only a few loose dollars with me." Vane frowned again. "Now I see what you're driving at; and I want to say that any little reputation I possess can pretty well take care of itself."

"Just so. No doubt it will be necessary; but it doesn't seem to have struck you that you're not the only person concerned."

"It didn't," Vane confessed with a further show of irritation. "But who's likely to hear or take any notice of the thing?"

"I can't tell; but you make enemies as well as friends, and you're walking in slippery places which you're not altogether accustomed to. You can't meet your difficulties with the ax here."

"That's true," a.s.sented Vane. "It's rather a pity. Anyhow, I'm not to be scared out of my interest in Celia Hartley."

"What is your interest in her? It's a question that may be asked."

"As you pretend that you don't know, I'll have pleasure in telling you again. When I first struck this city, played out and ragged, she was waitress at a little hotel, and she brought me a double portion of the nicest things at supper. What's more, she sewed up some of my clothes, and I struck a job on the strength of looking comparatively decent. It's the kind of thing you're apt to remember. One doesn't meet with too much kindness in this blamed censorious world."

"I'd expect you to remember," Carroll smiled.

They went in to dinner and when the meal was over they walked across to Nairn's. They were ushered into a room in which several other guests were a.s.sembled, and Vane sat down beside Jessy Horsfield. A place on the sofa she occupied was invitingly empty; he did not know, of course, that she had adroitly got rid of her previous companion as soon as he came in.

"I want to thank you; I was over at Miss Hartley's this afternoon," he began.

"I understood that you were at the mining meeting."

"So I was, your brother would tell you that--"

Vane broke off, remembering that he had defeated Horsfield; but Jessy laughed encouragingly.

"He did so--you were opposed to him; but it doesn't follow that I share all his views. Perhaps I ought to be a stauncher partizan."

"If you'll be just to both of us, I'll be satisfied."

Jessy reflected that while this was, no doubt, a commendable sentiment, he might have made a better use of the opening she had given him by at least hinting that he would value her sympathy.

"I suppose that means that you're convinced of the equity of your cause?"

she suggested.

"I dare say I deserve the rebuke; but aren't you trying to switch me off the subject?" Vane retorted with a laugh. "It's Celia Hartley that I want to talk about."

He did her an injustice. Jessy felt that she had earned his grat.i.tude, and she had no objection to his expressing it.

"It was a happy thought of yours to give her hats and things to make; I'm ever so much obliged to you," he went on. "I felt that you could be trusted to think of the right thing. An ingenious idea of that kind would never have occurred to me."

Jessy smiled up at him.

"It was very simple," she said sweetly. "I noticed a hat and dress of hers, which she admitted she had made. The girl has some talent; I'm only sorry I can't keep her busy."

"Couldn't you give her an order for a dozen hats? I'd be glad to be responsible."

Jessy laughed.

"The difficulty would be the disposal of them. They would be of no use to you; and I couldn't allow you to present them to me."

"I wish I could," Vane declared. "You certainly deserve them."

This was satisfactory, so far as it went, though Jessy would have preferred that his desire to bestow the favor should have sprung from some other motive than a recognition of her services to Celia Hartley.

She was, however, convinced that his only feeling toward the girl was one of compa.s.sion. Then she saw that he was looking at her with half-humorous annoyance in his face.

"Are you really grieved because I won't take those hats?" she asked lightly.

"I am," Vane confessed, and then proceeded to explain with rather unnecessary ingenuousness: "I'm still more vexed with the state of things that it's typical of--I suppose I mean the restrictedness of this civilized life. When you want to do anything in the bush, you take the ax and set about it; but here you're continually running up against some quite unnecessary barrier."

"One understands that it's worse in England," Jessy returned dryly.

"But in regard to Miss Hartley, I'll recommend her to my friends, as far as I can."

Vane made an abrupt movement, and Jessy realized by his expression that he had suddenly become oblivious of her presence. She had no doubt about the reason, for just then Evelyn Chisholm had entered the room. The lamplight fell upon her as she crossed the threshold, and Jessy recognized unwillingly that she looked surprisingly handsome. Handsome, however, was not the word Vane would have used. He thought Evelyn looked exotic: highly cultivated, strangely refined, as though she had grown up in a rarefied atmosphere in which nothing rank could thrive. Exactly what suggested this it was difficult to define; but the man felt that she had brought along with her the clean, chill air of the heights where the cloud-berries bloom. She was a flower of the dim and misty North, which has nevertheless its flashes of radiant, ethereal beauty. Though Evelyn had her faults, the impression she made on Vane was, perhaps, more or less justifiable.

Then he remembered that the girl had been offered to him and he had refused the gift. He wondered how he had exerted the necessary strength of will, for he was conscious that admiration, respect, pity, had now, changed and melted into sudden pa.s.sion. His blood tingled, and he felt strangely happy.

Laying a check upon his thoughts, he resumed a desultory conversation with Jessy, but he betrayed himself several times during it, for no change of his expression was lost upon the girl. At length she let him go. It was some time, however, before he secured a place beside Evelyn, a little apart from the others. He was now unusually quiet and self-contained.

"Nairn promised me an astonishment this evening, but it exceeds all my expectations," he said. "How are your people?"

Evelyn informed him that their health was satisfactory and added, watching him the while:

"Gerald sent his best remembrances."

"Thank you," Vane responded in a casual manner; "I am glad to have them."

Evelyn was now convinced that Mabel had been correct in concluding that he had a.s.sisted Gerald financially, though she was aware that nothing would induce either of the men to acquaint her with the fact.

"And Mopsy?" he inquired.

"I left her in tears because she could not come. She sent you so many confused messages that I'm afraid I've forgotten them."

Vane's face grew gentle.

"Dear little girl! It's a pity you couldn't have brought her. Mopsy and I are great friends."

Evelyn smiled at him. The tenderness of the man appealed to her; and she knew that to be the friend of anyone meant a good deal to him.

"You are her hero," she told him. "I don't think it is because you pulled her out of the water, either; in fact, I think you won her regard when you mended her canoe. You have a reputation to keep up with Mopsy."