The Highgrader Part 36

They took a side street that ran up the hill, presently came to the end of it, and stopped at the foot of a trail leading to the abandoned shaft-house.

The girl fired her news at him point blank. "Mr. Verinder has found out what you mean to do to-night and you are to be trapped."

"What I mean to do?" he repeated.

"About the ore--s.h.i.+pping it or something. I don't know exactly--somebody was drinking and talked, I think."

Moya, watching Kilmeny's face, saw only the slightest change. The eyes seemed to harden and narrow the least in the world.

"Tell me all you know about it."

She repeated what Joyce had overheard, adding that her friend had asked her to tell him.

The faintest ironic smile touched his face. "Will you thank Miss Seldon for me, both for this and many other favors?"

"You don't understand Joyce. You're not fair to her," Moya said impulsively.

"Perhaps not." A sudden warmth kindled in his eyes. "But I know who my real friends are. I'm fair to them, neighbor."

The color beat into her face, but she continued loyally. "May I ... a.s.sume you have a kindly interest in Joyce?"

"I'll listen to anything you care to tell me. I owe my friend, Miss Dwight, that much."

"She told me ... a little about you and her. Be fair to her. Remember how she has been brought up. All her life it has been drilled into her that she must make a good match. It's a shameful thing. I hate it.

But ... what can a girl like Joyce do?"

"You justify her?"

"I understand her. A decision was forced on her. She had no time to choose. And--if you'll forgive my saying so--I think Joyce did wisely, since she is what she is."

"Of course she did," he answered bitterly.

"Think of her. She doesn't love him, but she sacrifices her feeling to what she considers her duty."

"Shall we subst.i.tute ambition for duty?"

"If you like. Her position is not a happy one, but she must smile and be gay and hide her heartache. You can afford to be generous, Mr. Kilmeny."

"I've been a fool," he admitted dryly. "The turn that things have taken is the best possible one for me. But I'm not quite prepared to thank Miss Seldon yet for having awakened me."

She saw that his vanity was stung more than his heart. His infatuation for her had been of the senses. The young woman s.h.i.+fted to another issue.

"You'll be careful to-night, won't you?"

"Very. Mr. Verinder will have to wait for his coup, thanks to you."

"You mean...?" The question hung fire on her lips.

"Go on, neighbor."

"No. It was something I had no business to ask." The cheeks beneath the dusky eyes held each a patch of color burning through the tan.

"Then I'll say it for you. You were going to ask if they would really have caught me with the goods. Wasn't that it?"

She nodded, looking straight at him with the poise of lithe, slim youth he knew so well. Her very breathing seemed for the moment suspended while she waited, tremulous lips apart, for his answer.

"Yes."

"You mean that ... you are a highgrader?"

"Yes."

"I ... was afraid so."

His eyes would not release her. "You made excuses for Miss Seldon. Can you find any for me?"

"You are a man. You are strong. It is different with you."

"My sin is beyond the pale, I suppose?"

"How do I know? I'm only a girl. I've never seen anything of real life.

Can I judge you?"

"But you do."

The troubled virginal sweetness of the girl went to his soul. She was his friend, and her heart ached because of his wrongdoing.

"I can't make myself think wrong is right."

"You think the profits from these mines should all go to Verinder and his friends, that none should belong to the men who do the work?"

"I don't know.... That doesn't seem fair.... But I'm not wise enough to know how to make that right. The law is the law. I can't go back of that."

"Can't you? I can. Who makes the laws?" He asked it almost harshly.

"The people, I suppose."

"Nothing of the kind. The operators control the legislatures and put through whatever bills they please. I went to the legislative a.s.sembly once and we forced through an eight hour law for underground workers.

The state Supreme Court, puppets of capital, declared the statute unconst.i.tutional. The whole machinery of government is owned by our masters. What can we do?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I--except what I am doing. It is against the law, all right, but I try to see that the workmen get some of the profits they earn."

"Would the operators--what would they do if they proved you guilty of highgrading?"

"It is hard to prove. Ore can't easily be identified."

"But if they did?" she persisted.