Ben laughed. "Yes, it is different. Crego didn't need the job, and I do."
"How bad do you need it?" she asked.
"Well, it makes it possible for us to marry at once and settle here." He looked at Alice with a renewal of the admiration he had felt for her in the days of their dancing feet. She shrank from his gaze, and Mrs. Congdon perceived it.
"You're not so poor as all that," she stated rather than asked.
"I don't suppose we're likely to need bread of a sort, but I don't feel able to buy or rent and keep house—or I didn't till Haney made this offer."
"How did he come to make it?"
His fair skin flushed at her question, for he couldn't quite bring himself to tell the whole truth. He knew the decision came from Bertha, and at the moment, and for the first time, he saw how it might be misconstrued. He evaded her. "Modesty forbids, but I suppose it must come out. It is all due to my open-faced Waterbury countenance. He thinks I am at once able and honest."
"There you have it, Lee. Haney knows a good thing when he sees it."
Mrs. Congdon, putting the rest of her lecture aside for future use, said: "Well, if it's all settled, then I've no more to say. Probably I'm too fussy about what the town thinks, anyway."
"Precisely my contention, Mrs. Congdon," replied her husband.
She was audaciously frank and truth-seeking, but she could not say to any one but her husband that Little Mrs. Haney, expanding into a dangerously attractive woman, was already in love with Ben Fordyce. "There are limits to advice, after all," she said to Frank, when they were alone.
"I'm glad you recognize the limit in this case," he replied, "but I don't intend to worry. Ben is all right, and the girl has got to have her tragedy sooner or later. If it isn't Ben, it will be somebody else. A wonder it wasn't with me."
"Oh, I don't know." She laughed. "I feel very secure about you."
"Am I such a bad shape?" he asked, with comical inflection.
* * *
CHAPTER XIII
BERTHA'S YELLOW CART
Ben found his office a most cheerful and pleasant resort—just what he needed. And each morning as soon as his breakfast was eaten, he went to his desk to write, to read his morning paper, and to glance at the law journals. He called this "studying." About eleven o'clock the Haneys regularly drove down, and they went over some paper, or some proposal for investment, or Williams came in with a report of the mines. This filled in the time till lunch. Not infrequently he got into the carriage, and they rode up to get Alice to fill out the table. In the afternoon they sometimes went out to the mesas, and it was this almost daily habit of driving and lunching with the Haneys which infuriated Mrs. Crego (who really loved Alice) and troubled Lee Congdon (who was, as she said, frankly in love with Ben). Gossips were already discussing the outcome of it all.
"Just such a situation as that has produced a murderess," said Mrs. Crego to the judge one night. But he only shook his paper and scowled under its cover, refusing to say one word further concerning the Haneys.
Alice, studying Ben with those uncanny eyes of hers, saw him slowly yielding to the charm of Bertha's personality, which was maturing rapidly under the influence of her love. She was as silent as ever, but her manner was less boyish. The swell of her bosom, the glow that came into her face, had their counterparts in the unconsciously acquired feminine grace of her bearing. She was giving up many of the phrases which jarred on polite ears, and she did this, naturally, by reason of her association with Alice. She saw and took on many of the little niceties of the older woman's way of eating and drinking.
At Lee Congdon's suggestion, she abandoned the cross-saddle. It required a great deal of character to give up the free and natural way of riding (the way in which all women rode until these latter days), and to assume the helpless, cramped, and twisted position the side-saddle demands; but she did it in the feeling that Ben liked her better for the change. And he did. She could see approval in his eyes when she rode out for the first time in conventional riding-skirt, looking very slim and strong and graceful. "I can't stand for the 'hard hat,'" she confessed. "I'll wear a cap or a sombrero, but no skillet for me."
These were perfect days for the girl-wife. Under these genial suns, with such companionship, such daily food, she rushed towards maturity like some half-wild colt brought suddenly from the sere range into abundant and peaceful pasture, the physical side of her being rounded out, glowing with the fires of youth, at the same time that the poor old Captain sank slowly but surely into inactivity and feebleness. She did not perceive his decline, for he talked bravely of his future, and called her attention to his increasing weight, which was indeed a sign of his growing inertness.
And so the months passed with no one of the little group but Alice suffering, for Mart had attained a kind of resignation to his condition. He still talked of going up to the camp, but the doctor and Bertha persuaded him to wait, and so he endured as patiently as he could, and if he suffered, gave little direct sign of it.
Alice, fully alive now to the gossip of the town (thanks to Mrs. Crego), found herself helpless in the matter. She believed the young people to be—as they were—innocent of all disloyalty, and she could not assume the rôle of the jealous woman. She was frightened at thought of the suffering before them all, and it was in this fear that she said to Ben one day: "Boy, you're giving up a deal of time to the Haneys."
He answered, promptly. "They pay me for it."
"I know they do. But, dearest, you ought to take more time to study—to prepare yourself for other clients—when they come."
He laughed. "They're not likely to come right away, and, besides, I do get in an hour or two every day."
"But you ought to study six hours every day. Aren't the traditions of Lincoln and Daniel Webster all to that effect: work all day with the ax, and study in the light of pine knots all night?"
He took her words as lightly as they were spoken. "Something like that. But I'm no Daniel Webster; I'm not sure I want to go in for criminal law at all."
She spoke, sharply. "You mustn't think of getting your fees too easy, Ben. I don't think any good lawyer wins without work. Do you?"
"I didn't mean that," he hastened to say. "You do me an injustice. I really read more than you think, and my memory is tenacious, you know. Besides, I can't refuse to give the Haneys the most of my time; for they are my only clients, and the Captain is most generous."
"The mornings ought to be enough," she hazarded.
"I know what you mean. I do go out with them afternoons a good deal, but I consider that a part of my duty. They are so helpless socially. You've always felt that yourself."
"I feel it now, Bennie boy, but we mustn't neglect all friends for them. Other people don't know that you do this as a matter of business, and of course you can't tell any one; for if the Haneys heard of it they would be cut to the heart. Do they put it on a business basis?"
"They never mention it. Bertha isn't given to talking subtleties, as you know, and the Captain takes it all as it comes these days."
It hurt her to hear him speak of Mrs. Haney in that off-hand, habitual way, and she foretold further misconception on the part of Mrs. Crego in case he should forget—as he was likely to do—and allude to "Bertha" in her presence. But how could she tell him not to do that? She merely said: "I like Mrs. Haney, and I feel sorry for her—I mean I'm sorry she can't have a place in the town to which she is really entitled. She is improving very rapidly."
"Isn't she!" he cried out. "That little thing is reading right through the town library—a book every other day, she tells me."
"Novels, I fear."
"No; that's the remarkable thing. She's reading history and biography. Isn't it too bad she couldn't have had Bryn Mawr or Vassar? I've advised her to have in some one of the university people to coach her. I've suggested Miss Franklin. I wish you'd uphold me in it."
He had never told Alice of the talk in the garden that day, nor of the look in Bertha's eyes which
decided him to assume the position of mentor as well as legal adviser, and he did not now intimate more than a casual supervision of her reading. As a matter of fact, he was directing her daily life as absolutely as a husband—more absolutely, in fact; for she obeyed his slightest wish or most minute suggestion. He withheld these facts from Alice, not from any perceived disloyalty to her, but from his feeling that his advice to Bertha was paid for and professional, and therefore not to be spread wide before any one. He did not conceal anything; he merely outlined without filling in the bare suggestion.
He not merely gave his fair client lists of books, he talked with her upon them, and so far as he was able spoke seriously and conscientiously about them. She seized upon his suggestion, and got Miss Franklin, one of the teachers of the schools, to come in now and again of an evening to help her, and, being fond of music, she bought a piano and began to take lessons. All of which (Lee Congdon would have said) threatened to render her commonplace and uninteresting; but Alice Heath felt quite differently about that.
"No; the more that girl gets, the more she'll have, Lee. As Ben says, she's the kind that if she were a boy would turn out a big self-made man. That's a little twisted as to grammar, but you see what I mean. Sex is one of the ultimate mysteries, isn't it? Now, why didn't I inherit my father's ability?"
"You did, only you never use it. But this girl hasn't your father to draw from."
"No; but her father was an educated man—a civil engineer, she tells me, who came out here for one of the big railroads. He was something of an inventor, too. That's the reason he died poor—they nearly all do."
"But the mother?"
"Well, she's weak and tiresome now, but she's by no means common. She's broken by hard work, but she's naturally refined. No, the girl isn't so bad; it's the frightful girlhood she endured in that little hotel. I think it's wonderful that she could associate with the people she did—barbers and railway hands, and all that—and be what she is to-day. If she had married a man like young Bennett, for example, she would have gone far."
"She can't go far with Haney chained to her wrist," said the blunt Mrs. Congdon.
"But think what will happen when she is his widow!"
"And his legatee!"
"Precisely."
"She'll cut a wide swath. She's going to be handsome."
They had reached a danger-point, for Lee was on the verge of saying something about Ben's infatuation; but she didn't, and Alice knew why she didn't, for she asked, rather abruptly: "Won't you come over Thursday night? I'm going to take the Haneys to dinner at the hotel." She flushed under Lee's gaze. "It's really Bennie's party, and I'm going to make it as pretty as I can."
"Alice, I don't understand you. Why do you do this?"
"Because I must. She and the Captain are going East on a visit, and Ben wants to give them a 'jolly send-off,' as he calls it. Besides, I like the girl."
Lee mused in silence for a few moments. "I guess you're right. Of course I'll come. Who else will?"
"Several of Ben's new friends and the Cregos—"
"Not the missus?"
"Yes; she comes because she's consumed with curiosity. Oh, it really promises to be smart!"
Congdon came in just in time to hear these words, "Who promises to be smart—Mrs. Haney?"
The women laughed. "Another person going about with a mind full of Mrs. Haney."
"Well, why not? I just passed her on the street in her new dog-cart, and she was ripping good to look at. Say, that girl is too swift for this town. You people better keep close to her if you want to know what's doing in gowns and cloaks. Did you ever see such development in your life? Say, girls, I always believed in clothes. But, my eyes! I didn't think cotton and wool and leather could make such a change. Who is putting her on?"
"The cart is a new development," said Alice. "I hope it wasn't yellow?"
"Well, it was."
"The Captain was in it?"
"Not on your life. The Captain was at home in the easy-chair by the fire."
The women looked at each other. Then Lee said: "The beginning of the end. Poor old Captain."
Congdon was loyalty itself. "Now don't you jump at conclusions. Yes, she pulled up, and I went out to see her. She gave me her hand in the old way, and said; 'Isn't this a joke. The Captain ordered it from Chicago. He saw a picture in one of my magazines of a girl driving one of these things, and here I am. You don't think they'll charge me a special license, do you?' Oh, she's all right. Don't you worry about her. Then she said: 'What I don't like about it is the Captain can't ride in it. I'm not going to keep it,' she said."
"That was for effect," remarked Lee.
"Don't be nasty, Mrs. Congdon. You can't look into her big serious eyes and say such things."
Lee looked at Alice. "Oh, well, if it comes down to 'big serious eyes,' then all criticism is valueless. Aren't men curious? Character is nothing, intellect is nothing—it's all a question of whether we're good-lookin' or not. Sometimes I'm discouraged. An artist husband is so hard to please."
"I didn't use to be, dovey," he replied, with a mischievous gleam.
"He means when he took me. I'm used to his slurs. Just think, Alice, I accepted this man fresh from Paris, with all his sins of omission and commission upon him, and now he reviles me to my teeth." She patted the hand he slipped round her neck. "Tell us more about Mrs. Haney. How was she dressed?"
"In perfect good taste—almost too good. She looked like one of Joe Meyer's early posters. Gee! but she was snappy in drawing. She carries that sort of thing well—she's so clean and nifty in line. If she could have a year in Paris—wow!—well, us to Fifth Avenue, sure thing!"
"All depends on what is at the bottom of that girl's soul," retorted Lee, sententiously. "A light woman with money is a flighty combination. I don't pretend to say what your little Mrs. Haney is at bottom. Thus far I like her. I talk about her freely, but I defend her in public. But, at the same time, fifty thousand dollars a year is a corrupting power."
Congdon gravely assented to this. "You're perfectly right; that's the reason I keep our income down to fifteen hundred. I'd hate to see you look like a ready-made cloak advertisement."
Alice rose rather wearily. "Thursday night, you said?"
"Yes; and I guess, following the latest bulletin concerning Mr. Haney, we better put on our swellest ginghams."
Alice, on her way home, continued to think of Mrs. Haney; indeed, she was seldom out of her mind. And she had a feeling of having known her for a long time—since girlhood; and yet less than a year had passed since that dinner at Lee Congdon's. Spring was coming; the hint of it was in the sweet air, and in the clear piping of a prairie lark in a vacant lot. Spring! And how long it had been since Ben had referred to their marriage! Perhaps he took it for granted. "Perhaps he sees in me only failing health, and dares not speak."
She was not gaining; that she knew, and so did Lee. She had stayed too long in the raw climate of her native city. "He must not marry me!" she despairingly cried. "I must not let him ruin his life in that way!" And she sank back in the corner of her carriage with wrinkled, pallid face, and quivering lips; for Bertha was passing up the avenue, driving a smart-stepping cob, in her cart, and in the seat beside her, as radiant as herself, sat Ben Fordyce.
* * *
CHAPTER XIV
THE JOLLY SEND-OFF
The Mrs. Haney who came to Alice Heath's dinner at the Antlers was in outward seeming an entirely different person from the constrained young wife who stepped into Lee Congdon's home that night of her first dinner. She was gowned now in that severe good taste which betokens a high-priced "ladies' tailor" combined with very judicious criticism. Her critic she had found in Miss Franklin, a young lady from the university who had passed easily and naturally from teaching history and etiquette up to the higher function of advising as to the cut and color of gowns. Bertha's black velvet was this time a close-clasping sheath which revealed her slender figure, and delicately and modestly disclosed th
e growing grace of her bosom. She wore, too, some jewels of diamond and turquoise—not showy (her mentor had taken great pains to warn her of all that). And she was not merely irreproachable, she was radiant, as she slowly entered with the Captain, who, having submitted like a martyr to evening dress, was uneasy as a colt in harness, and more than usually uncertain of step.
Ben's eyes expanded with surprise and his heart warmed with pride as he greeted her. "You are beautiful!" he exclaimed to her, and the tone of his exclamation as well as the words exalted her. Her brain filled with a mist of gold. She hardly felt the floor beneath her feet. To be called beautiful—and by him—had been outside the circle of her most daring hope, and the repetition of this word in her mind was like the clash of musical bells—entrancing her. Mechanically she took her place at his right hand, silently, and with a far-away look, listening to the merry clamor of the table. She hardly knew what she ate or what any one said—except when Ben spoke to her. But she was aware of the Captain down at Alice's right, and wondered vaguely how he was getting on with his napkin and his fork.
The first words that really roused her and stopped the musing smile on her lips were spoken by Ben in a lower voice—half-laughing, but tender also. "You mustn't stay away too long. I'll feel as if I weren't earning my salary while you're gone."
"I wish you were going too," she said. She had thought this many times, but had not permitted herself to utter it. "Why can't you—and Alice—come with us?"
"I can't afford it, for one thing. The Captain spoke of it, but it's out of the question."
"He'll pay you wages just the same."
"I wouldn't want pay. No, it isn't that; but Alice isn't able to go, and I can't think of going without her."
This was a good reason, and Bertha, looking towards Alice, saw in her face the pain which masks itself in color and movement. The dinner-table was exquisite and the company gay, and Bertha felt herself a part of the great world of dignity and beauty, where eating is made to seem a graceful art, and wine is only a bit of color and not a lure. She vaguely comprehended that this little party was of a tone and quality of the best the world over—that it was of a part and interfused with the dining customs of London and Paris and New York. "It will be au fait," Miss Franklin had said, sententiously, "for Alice Heath knows."
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