by Bret Harte
resent. Women are quick to noticeand augur more or less wisely from these small details. Nevertheless,she began in quite another tone.
"Do you remember your mother--MR.--MR.--BRIGGS?"
Jeff noticed the new epithet. "No, miss; she died when I was quiteyoung."
"Your father, then?"
Jeff's eye kindled a little, aggressively. "I remember HIM."
"What was he?"
"Miss Mayfield!"
"What was his business or profession?"
"He--hadn't--any!"
"Oh, I see--a gentleman of property."
Jeff hesitated, looked at Miss Mayfield hurriedly, colored, and did notreply.
"And lost his property, Mr. Briggs?" With one of those rare impulses ofan overtasked gentle nature, Jeff turned upon her almost savagely. "Myfather was a gambler, and shot himself at a gambling table."
Miss Mayfield rose hurriedly. "I--I beg your pardon, Mr. Jeff."
Jeff was silent.
"You know--you MUST know--I did not mean--"
No reply.
"Mr. Jeff!"
Her little hand fluttered toward him, and lit upon his sleeve, where itwas suddenly captured and pressed passionately to his lips.
"I did not mean to be thoughtless or unkind," said Miss Mayfield,discreetly keeping to the point, and trying weakly to disengage herhand. "You know I wouldn't hurt your feelings."
"I know, Miss Mayfield." (Another kiss.)
"I was ignorant of your history."
"Yes, miss." (A kiss.)
"And if I could do anything for you, Mr. Jeff--" She stopped.
It was a very trying position. Being small, she was drawn after her handquite up to Jeff's shoulder, while he, assenting in monosyllables, wasparting the fingers, and kissing them separately. Reasonable discoursein this attitude was out of the question. She had recourse to strategy.
"Oh!"
"Miss Mayfield!"
"You hurt my hand."
Jeff dropped it instantly. Miss Mayfield put it in the pocket of hersacque for security. Besides, it had been so bekissed that it seemedunpleasantly conscious.
"I wish you would tell me all about yourself," she went on, with acertain charming feminine submission of manner quite unlike her ordinaryspeech; "I should like to help you. Perhaps I can. You know I am quiteindependent; I mean--"
She paused, for Jeff's face betrayed no signs of sympathetic following.
"I mean I am what people call rich in my own right. I can do as I pleasewith my own. If any of your trouble, Mr. Jeff, arises from want ofmoney, or capital; if any consideration of that kind takes you away fromyour home; if I could save you THAT TROUBLE, and find for you--perhaps alittle nearer--that which you are seeking, I would be so glad to doit. You will find the world very wide, and very cold, Mr. Jeff," shecontinued, with a certain air of practical superiority quite naturalto her, but explicable to her friends and acquaintances only as theconsciousness of pecuniary independence; "and I wish you would be frankwith me. Although I am a woman, I know something of business."
"I will be frank with you, miss," said Jeff, turning a colorless faceupon her. "If you was ez rich as the Bank of California, and could throwyour money on any fancy or whim that struck you at the moment; if youfelt you could buy up any man and woman in California that was willingto be bought up; and if me and my aunt were starving in the road, wewouldn't touch the money that we hadn't earned fairly, and didn't belongto us. No, miss, I ain't that sort o' man!"
How much of this speech, in its brusqueness and slang, was an echoof Yuba Bill's teaching, how much of it was a part of Jeff's inwardweakness, I cannot say. He saw Miss Mayfield recoil from him. It addedto his bitterness that his thought, for the first time voiced, appearedto him by no means as effective or powerful as he had imagined it wouldbe, but he could not recede from it; and there was the relief that theworst had come, and was over now.
Miss Mayfield took her hand out of her pocket. "I don't think youquite understand me, Mr. Jeff," she said quietly; "and I HOPE I don'tunderstand you." She walked stiffly at his side for a few moments, butfinally took the other side of the road. They had both turned, halfunconsciously, back again to the "Half-way House."
Jeff felt, like all quarrel-seekers, righteous or unrighteous, the fullburden of the fight. If he could have relieved his mind, and at thenext moment leaped upon Yuba Bill's coach, and so passed away--without afurther word of explanation--all would have been well. But to walk backwith this girl, whom he had just shaken off, and who must now thoroughlyhate him, was something he had not preconceived, in that delightfulforecast of the imagination, when we determine what WE shall say anddo without the least consideration of what may be said or done to us inreturn. No quarrel proceeds exactly as we expect; people have such away of behaving illogically! And here was Miss Mayfield, who was clearlyderelict, and who should have acted under that conviction, walking alongon the other side of the road, trailing the splendor of her parasol inthe dust like an offended goddess.
They had almost reached the house. "At what time do you go, Mr. Briggs?"asked the young lady quietly.
"At eleven to-night, by the up stage."
"I expect some friends by that stage--coming with my father."
"My aunt will take good care of them," said Jeff, a little bitterly.
"I have no doubt," responded Miss Mayfield gravely; "but I was notthinking of that. I had hoped to introduce them to you to-morrow. ButI shall not be up so late to-night. And I had better say good-by to younow."
She extended the unkissed hand. Jeff took it, but presently let the limpfingers fall through his own.
"I wish you good fortune, Mr. Briggs."
She made a grave little bow, and vanished into the house. But here,I regret to say, her lady-like calm also vanished. She upbraided hermother peevishly for obliging her to seek the escort of Mr. Briggs inher necessary exercise, and flung herself with an injured air upon thesofa.
"But I thought you liked this Mr. Briggs. He seems an accommodating sortof person."
"Very accommodating. Going away just as we are expecting company!"
"Going away?" said Mrs. Mayfield in alarm. "Surely he must be told thatwe expect some preparation for our friends?"
"Oh," said Miss Mayfield quickly, "his aunt will arrange THAT."
Mrs. Mayfield, habitually mystified at her daughter's moods, saidno more. She, however, fulfilled her duty conscientiously by rising,throwing a wrap over the young girl, tucking it in at her feet, andhaving, as it were, drawn a charitable veil over her peculiarities, lefther alone.
At half past ten the coach dashed up to the "Half-way House," with aflash of lights and a burst of cheery voices. Jeff, coming uponthe porch, was met by Mr. Mayfield, accompanying a lady and twogentlemen,--evidently the guests alluded to by his daughter. Accustomedas Jeff had become to Mr. Mayfield's patronizing superiority, it seemedunbearable now, and the easy indifference of the guests to his ownpresence touched him with a new bitterness. Here were HER friends, whowere to take his place. It was a relief to grasp Yuba Bill's large handand stand with him alone beside the bar.
"I'm ready to go with you to-night, Bill," said Jeff, after a pause.
Bill put down his glass--a sign of absorbing interest.
"And these yar strangers I fetched?"
"Aunty will take care of them. I've fixed everything."
Bill laid both his powerful hands on Jeff's shoulders, backed himagainst the wall, and surveyed him with great gravity.
"Briggs's son clar through! A little off color, but the grit all thar!Bully for you, Jeff." He wrung Jeff's hand between his own.
"Bill!" said Jeff hesitatingly.
"Jeff!"
"You wouldn't mind my getting up on the box NOW, before all the folksget round?"
"I reckon not. Thar's the box-seat all ready for ye."
Climbing to his high perch, Jeff, indistinguishable in the darkness,looked out upon the porch and the moving figures of the passengers, onBill growling out his orders to his active h
ostler, and on the twinklinglights of the hotel windows. In the mystery of the night and thebitterness of his heart, everything looked strange. There was a light inMiss Mayfield's room, but the curtains were drawn. Once he thought theymoved, but then, fearful of the fascination of watching them, he turnedhis face resolutely away.
Then, to his relief, the hour came; the passengers re-entered the coach;Bill had mounted the box, and was slowly gathering his reins, when ashrill voice rose from the porch.
"Oh, Jeff!"
Jeff leaned an anxious face out over the coach lamps.
It was Aunt Sally, breathless and on tiptoe,