XVIII
ELSIE'S ANCIENT LOVE AFFAIR
As they walked back to their camp Jennie took her brother's arm:
"What is it, George?"
"I must return to the agency."
"That means we must all go?"
"I suppose so. The settlers seemed determined to make trouble. They havehad another row with Gray Man's band, and shots have been fired.Fortunately no one was hurt. We must leave here early. Say nothing toany of our guests till we are safely on the way home."
Elsie, walking with Lawson, was very pensive. "I begin to understand whyCaptain Curtis is made Indian agent. He understands these people,sympathizes with them."
"No one better, and if the department can retain him six years he willhave the Tetongs comfortably housed and on the road to independence andself-respect."
"Why shouldn't he be retained?"
"Well, your father may secure re-election to the Senate next winter."
"I know," she softly answered, "he dislikes Captain Curtis."
"More than that--in order to be elected, he must pledge himself to haveCurtis put out o' the way."
"That sounds like murder," she said.
"Oh no; it's only politics--politics and business. But let's not talk ofthat--let us absorb the beauty of the night. Did you enjoy the dance?"
"Very much. I am hopeless of ever painting it though--it is so full ofbig, significant shadows. I wish I knew more about it."
"You are less confident than you were last year." He looked at herslyly.
"I see more."
"And feel more?" he asked.
"Yes--I'm afraid I'm getting Captain Curtis's point of view. Thesepeople aren't the mendicants they once seemed. The expression of some ofthose faces to-night was wonderful. They are something more than trampswhen they discard their rags."
"I wish you'd come to my point of view," he said, a little irrelevantly.
"About what?"
"About our momentous day. Suppose we say Wednesday of Thanksgivingweek?"
"I thought you were going to wait for me to speak," she replied.
He caught his breath a little. "So I will--only you won't forget my grayhairs, will you?"
"I don't think I will--not with your broad daily hints to remind me. Butyou promised to be patient and--just friendly."
He ignored her sarcasm. "It would be rather curious if I _should_ becomeincreasingly impatient, wouldn't it? I made that promise in entire goodfaith, but--I seem to be changing."
"That's what troubles me," she said. "You are trying to hurry me."
At this moment they came close to the Parkers and she did not continue.He had given her another disturbing thought to sleep on, and that was,"Would it hurt him much if I should now return his ring?"
Mrs. Parker was disposed to discuss the dance, but Jennie said:
"We must all go to sleep. George says we are to move early to-morrow."
* * * * *
The walls of the tent could hardly be seen when the sound of thecrackling flames again told that faithful Two Horns was feeding thecamp-fire. Crane's Voice could be heard bringing in the horses, and in afew moments Curtis called out in a low, incisive voice:
"Everybody turn out; we must make an early start across the range."
The morning was gray, the peaks hidden in clouds, and the wind chill asthe women came from their beds. Two Horns had stretched some blankets tokeep off the blast, but still Elsie shivered, and Curtis roundlyapologized. "I'm sorry to get you up so early. It spoils all the fun ofcamping if you're obliged to rise before the sun. An hour from now andall will be genial. Please wait for my explanation."
Breakfast was eaten in discomfort and comparative silence, thoughParker, with intent to enliven the scene, cut a few capers as awkward asthe antics of a sand-hill crane. Almost before the smoke of the tepeefires began to climb the trees the agent and his party started back overthe divide towards the mill, no one in holiday mood. There was a certainpathos in this loss of good cheer.
Once out of sight of the camp, Curtis turned and said: "Friends, I'msorry to announce it, but I must return to the agency to-night and Imust take you all with me. Wilson has asked me to hasten home, and ofcourse he would not do so without good reason."
"What is the matter?" asked Elsie.
"The same old trouble. The cattlemen are throwing their stock on thereservation and the Tetongs are resenting it."
"No danger, I hope," said Parker, pop-eyed this time with genuineapprehension.
"Oh no--not if I am on hand to keep the races apart. Now I'm going todrive hard, and you must all hang on. I want to pull into the agencybefore dark."
The wagon lurched and rattled down the divide as Curtis urged the horsessteadily forward. With his foot in the brake, he descended in a singlehour the road which had consumed three long hours to climb. Conversationunder these conditions was difficult and at times impossible.
Jennie, intrepid driver herself, clutched her brother's arm at times, asthe vehicle lurched, but Curtis made it all a joke by shouting, "It isalways easy to slide into Hades--the worst is soon over."
Once in the valley of the Elk the road grew better, and Curtis askedElsie if she wished to drive. She, being very self-conscious for somereason, shook her head, "No, thank you," and rode for the most part insilence, though Lawson made a brave effort to keep up a conversation.
By eleven o'clock not even Curtis and Lawson together could make theride a joke. The women were hungry and tired, and distinctly saddened bythis sudden ending of their joyous outing.
"I wish these rampant cowboys could have waited till we had ourholiday," Jennie grumbled, as she stretched her tired arms.
"Probably they were informed of the Captain's plans and seized theopportunity," suggested Parker.
"I wonder if Cal is a traitor?" mused Jennie.
Two Horns and Crane's Voice came rattling along soon after Curtisstopped for noon at their first camping-place, and in a few minuteslunch was ready. Conversation still lagged in spite of inspiritingcoffee, and the women lay out on their rugs and blankets, resting theiraching bones, while the men smoked and speculated on the outcome of thewhole Indian question.
The teams were put to the wagons as soon as their oats were eaten andthe homeward drive begun, brisk and business-like, and for somemysterious reason Curtis recovered his usual cheerful tone.
It was mid-afternoon when the agency was sighted, and the five-o'clockbell had just rung as they drove slowly and with no appearance of hasteinto the yard.
Wilson came out to meet them. "How-de-do? You made a short trip."
"How are things?" inquired Curtis.
"Nothing doing--all quiet," replied the clerk, but Curtis detectedsomething yet untold in the quiver of his clerk's eyelid.
"Well, I'm glad we got in."
Supper was eaten with little ceremony and very languid conversation, andthe artists at once sought their rooms to rest. The Parkers were tootired to be nervous, and Curtis was absorbed with some private problem.
As Lawson and Elsie walked across the square in the twilight heannounced, meditatively:
"I'm going to be more and more impatient--that is now certain."
"Osborne, don't! Please don't take that tone; I don't like it."
"Why not, dear?" he asked, tenderly.
"Because--because--" She turned in a swift, overmastering impulse."Because if you do, I must give you back your ring." She wrung it fromher finger. "I think I must, anyhow."
As she crowded the gem into his lax hand he said: "Why, what does thismean, Elsie Bee Bee?" His voice expressed pain and bewilderment.
"I don't know _what_ it means yet, only I feel that it isn't right nowto wear it. I told you when you put it on that it implied no promise onmy part."
"I know it, and it doesn't imply any now."
"Yes, it does. Your whole attitude towards me implies an absoluteengagement, and I can't rest under that. Take back your ring till I canreceive it
as other girls do--as a binding promise. You _must_ do thisor I will hate you!" she added, with a sudden fury.
"Why, certainly, dearest--only I don't see what has produced this changein you."
"I have not changed--you have changed."
He laughed at this. "The woman's last word! Well, I admit it. I havecome to love you as a man loves the woman he wishes to make his wife.I'm going to care a great deal, Elsie Bee Bee, if you do not come to mesome time."
"Don't say that!" she cried, and there was an imploring accent in hervoice. "Don't you see I must not wear your ring till I promise all youask?"
They walked on in silence to the door. As they stood there he said: "Ifeel as though I were about to say good-bye to you forever, and it makesmy heart ache."
She put both hands on his shoulders, then, swift as a bird, turned andwas gone. He felt that she had thought to kiss him, but he divined itwould have been a farewell kiss, and he was glad that she had turnedaway. There was still hope for him in that indecision.
As for Elsie, life seemed suddenly less simple and less orderly. Shepitied Osborne, she was angry and dissatisfied with herself, and indoubt about Curtis. "I'm not in love with him--it is impossible, absurd;but my summer is spoiled. I shall go home at once. It is foolish for meto be here when I could be at the sea-shore."
After a moment she thought: "Why am I here? I guess the girls wereright. I _am_ a crank--an irresponsible. Why should I want to paintthese malodorous tepee dwellers? Just to be different from any oneelse."
As she sat at her open window she heard again the Tetong lover's flutewailing from the hill-side across the stream, and the sound struckstraight in upon her heart and filled her with a mysterious longing--apain which she dared not analyze. Her mind was active to the point ofconfusion--seething with doubts and the wreckage of her opinions.Lawson's action had deeply disturbed her.
They had never pretended to sentiment in their relationship; indeed, shehad settled into a conviction that love was a silly passion, possibleonly to girls in their teens. This belief she had attained by passingthrough what seemed to her a fiery furnace of suffering at eighteen, andwhen that self-effacing passion had burned itself out she had renouncedlove and marriage and "devoted herself to art," healing herself withwork. For some years thereafter she posed as a man-hater.
The objective cause of all this tumult and flame and renunciation seemedridiculously inadequate in the eyes of others. He was the privatesecretary of Senator Stollwaert at the time, a smug, discreet, prettyman, of slender attainment and no great ambition. Happily, he hadafterwards removed to New York, or Washington would have been animpossible place of residence for Elsie. She had met him once since herreturn--he had had the courage to call upon her--and the familiar poseof his small head and the mincing stride of his slender legs had givenher a feeling of nausea. "Is it possible that I once agonized over thistrig little man?" she asked herself.
To be just to him, Mr. Garretson did not presume in the least on hisprevious intimacy; on the contrary, he seemed timid and ill at ease inthe presence of the woman whose beauty had by no means been foreshadowedin her girlhood. He was not stupid; the splendor of her surroundingsawed him, but above all else there was a look on her face which tooplainly expressed contempt for her ancient folly. Her shame was asperceptible to him as though expressed in spoken words, and his visitwas never repeated.
Of this affair Elsie had spoken quite freely to Lawson. "It only showswhat an unmitigated idiot a girl is. She is bound to love some one. Iknew quantities of nice boys, and why I should have selected poor Sammyas the centre of all my hopes and affections I don't know. I dimlyrecall thinking he had nice ears and hands, but even they do not nowseem a reasonable basis for wild passion, do they?"
Lawson had been amused. "Love at that age isn't a creature of reason."
"Evidently not, if mine was a sample."
"Ours now is so reasonable as to seem insecure and dangerous."
Her intimacy with Lawson, therefore, had begun on the plane ofgood-fellowship while they were in Paris together, and for two years heseemed quite satisfied. Of late he had been less contained.
After her outburst of anger at her father's ejectment of Curtis, she metLawson with a certain reserve not common to her. At the moment, she morethan half resolved that the time had come to leave her father's housefor Lawson's flat, and yet her will wavered. She said as little aspossible to him concerning that last disgraceful scene, as much on herown account as to spare Curtis, but her restlessness was apparent toLawson and puzzled him. Two or three times during the summer he hadopenly, though jocularly, alluded to their marriage, but she had puthim off with a keen word. Now that her father seemed intolerable, shelistened to him with a new interest. He became a definite possibility--arefuge.
Encouraged by this slight change in her attitude towards him, Lawsontook a ring from his pocket one night and said, "I wish you'd wear this,Elsie Bee Bee."
She drew back. "I can't do that. I'm not ready to promise anything yet."
"It needn't bind you," he pleaded. "It needn't mean any more than youcare to have it mean. But I think our understanding justifies a ring."
"That's just it," she answered, quickly. "I don't like you to be sosolemn about our 'understanding.' You promised to let me think it allout in my own way and in my own time."
"I know I did--and I mean to do so. Only"--he smiled with a wistful lookat her--"I would have you observe that I have developed three gray hairsover my ears."
She took the ring slowly, and as she put the tip of her finger into it aslight premonitory shudder passed over her.
"You are sure you understand--this is no binding promise on my part?"
"It will leave you as free as before."
"Then I will wear it," she said, and slipped it to its place. "It is abeautiful ring."
He bent and kissed her fingers. "And a beautiful hand, Elsie Bee Bee."
Now, lying alone in the soundless deep of the night, she went over thatscene, and the one through which she had just passed. "He's a dear,good fellow, and I love him--but not like that." And the thought that itwas all over between them, and the decision irrevocably made, was atonce a pain and a pleasure. The promise, slight as it was, had been aburden. "Now I am absolutely free," she said, in swift, exultantrebound.
The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop Page 18
