CHAPTER XXI--IGNORING IRENE
In her self-sufficient egoism Irene Sturgis had no mercy. She continuedto ravel the thread.
"At times, dar-rling, you get too terribly eccentric for even me to--toswallow." She gulped at the midway modified metaphor. "If you'd sent mea bunch of orchids now, by way of suggesting your gratitude for lastnight's rescue from limbo, or if you'd brought around a pinkie ring witha birthstone set--diamonds are for April, you know--which mother _might_let me keep if I coaxed her and explained how it humiliates me always tobe borrowing jewelry--I'd not have lifted a questioning lash. But tosteer up a ton of beef----"
She paused to survey again the bulk of his assumed gift, but not longenough for successful interruption. "Still, one shouldn't look agift-cow in the mouth, I suppose. What does one feed her--him, Why-Not,and where will it sleep? His eyes are so wild, poor pretty, she looks asif it hadn't had a good night in a week. Nice moo-moo--nice bossy!"
Despite her liberty with genders, none of her hearers failed to graspher meaning.
"Irene" Harford interposed, "have you forgotten what your mother toldyou to do--rather not to do-regarding----"
His stern tone made the acquisitive little creature's fingers tighten onPape's arm; also made him lean toward her with the sympathy of a sharedresentment. So the family had settled it in council--at Harford'ssuggestion, doubtless--that Irene, as well as Jane, must cut the Montanaineligible.
His shoulders shrugged for a bit of ignoring on his own account and hisspeech was all for Irene. "The critter's too hoofed to take in to yourmother, but if you'd ask her to come out on the steps----"
"Aren't you too _cute_?" the girl enthused. "I've heard about old-time,old-country suitors listing their oxen and asses when asking theirlady-love's hand. I _hope_ mother will get the thought back of the deed.She's got to, even if she don't. She'll be startled to small bits, butI'll drag her out and----"
Her hand slid up to his shoulder and she stood on tip-toe to confidehurriedly: "It's all right, their telling me what not to do. When itcomes to you, Peter dar-rling, I _know_ what to do. Fortunately I havethe courage of my corpuscles and I'm almost as keen about your cow as Iam about----"
Before Pape suspected her intention, so all too unaccustomed was he todemonstrations of such sort, she had pressed her ripe-rouged lipsagainst his paling own in a kiss that spoke the perquisitory passion ofone young lady of to-day.
Ignore Irene? Not any more than certain other somebodies should ignorehim!
As she darted off, he felt moved by the initiative of desperation towardone of the witnesses. He anchored Polkadot by dropping the reins overhis head; strode toward the foot of the steps where Jane was leaningagainst the balustrade; lifted a look straight as a board to hers.Despite the expression of repose-at-all-costs so becoming to her perfectfeatures, despite the frank scowl of the more favored suitor standingliterally and figuratively on the same level with her, he spoke from theheart.
"Jane," said he, "everything I have and everything I am are at yourservice."
"Steer and all?" She put the question in a curiously unimpassioned voicethat made him ache with its reproach.
"Steer and all--you'll see," he declared. "You can't afford to doubt me,any more than I could afford to doubt the power that beast represents.Look at me with your own eyes and you'll see that I am as incapable asthe red of deceit or double-dealing toward you. Trust me, unless--Youdon't _want_ to doubt me, do you, Jane?"
Evidently Mrs. Sturgis was not accustomed to being dragged out on thepavement fronting her town house--at any rate not in negligee. Theprotests which bubbled from her lips and spilled down the steps withthis latest caprice of her daughter, however, were of no avail. Irenehad a firm grip on her arm and defied any attempt to assert maternalauthority with a cluster of long-stemmed red roses which she brandishedin her free hand.
Although Jane's lips had moved twice, as if from desire to make Papesome reply, she was deterred by the outburst from above. He, too, turnedto meet the new issue, in this case a conventional matron forced tobehave in an unconventional way. Her several glances were directed downat the steer, up at the windows of such fashionable neighbors as mightor might not be peering through front blinds, across into the easy,amiable grin of the Westerner voted to be too "wild" in recent familycouncil. Her attempt to discountenance him with a stony stare combinedrather pitifully with the outraged decorum and flush of fright on herface.
"Mr. Pape, w-what does this m-menagerie mean?"
"It means, madame--" with his sombrero Pape dusted a section of thepavement cement in his bow--"that I have the honor of fulfilling yoururgent request. In yonder bovine I present for your inspection a copy ofthe Stansbury-Pape escutcheon--verily the fruit of my family tree. Itrust he may meet with your approval as a genealogical guarantee."
"But Irene said--I must say that I--I don't understand."
"Ma'am, Irene herself doesn't understand, therefore cannot explain. Prayallow _me_ to elucidate."
He included the rest as hearers by a mandatory glance, all except theperquisitory person. She was sidling, fascinated, toward what was to herthe latest in love tokens.
Drops of curiosity were wearing away the stone of the matron's stare.
"By bovine--it's so long since I studied Latin--are you referring tothat wicked-looking cow, young man?" she demanded.
"He don't look feline or canine or even equine--I ask you, does he,now?" Pape waved a prideful hand toward his fellow Montanan. "Youenquired if I had a coat-of-arms. You remember? You seem to set store onthe insignia of a fellow's who, whence and whither. Yonder steer, ma'am,wears my escutcheon."
"_Wears_ it? I--I don't seem to _begin_ to understand you."
"Then it is well that I am here to help you understand. Your necessityis my opportunity." Pape thoroughly dusted another block of cement."Note, if you please, the interrogation mark burned into the hair of thered's right rump and the odd angle at which it is placed. That is theshield of the house of Pape."
Whether at his words or the hand on her elbow which was inviting hercloser to the hang-head exhibit in the street, Mrs. Sturgis laughed witha nervous note.
"But that is absurd! A question-mark a shield?"
"Pardon me--no more absurd than any new idea before demonstration."
All whimsicality disappeared in the serious set of the Westerner's face.He straightened; demanded Jane Lauderdale's attention with a look;continued:
"To take nothing for granted, but to question everything has become myshield. With it before me, the fights I find necessary are forewon.Nobody can take me by surprise or press through my guard.Nothing--positively nothing that I want is impossible to obtain."
This rather extravagant sounding claim Harford contested--Pape had hopedhe would, while fearing he wouldn't.
"Dear me," he exclaimed, "you seem to be a sort of natural-born NewThoughter."
"Not born--_made_." The ranchman's look slashed through the spacebetween him and the Gothamite. "Out in Montana, Harfy, that escutcheonmeans a lot--to stock rustlers and brand-blotters and oil share fakers.Make a note of the fact that Why-Not Pape queer-questions every man thatgets in his way. Few--and I don't think you--can answer straight."
"You don't think--You take that back, you ill-bred bounder orI'll--I'll----"
With a spring from step to pavement, Harford squared off to make goodhis unfinished threat. His face and eyes went as red as his hair. Hisfingers tightened as if to the curve of a throat.
Pape met him with a well-pleased look.
Forgetful of the metropolitan scene, of those possible eyes and eyes ofbehind-shutter neighbors and of the fears of their own fair, the twoclosed in that desire-to-conquer conflict which, from primordial timesthrough the hazy stretch of days-after-to-morrows-and-morrows, ever hasbeen and ever shall be the lust of love. There was no preliminaryfeinting. From its start the fight promised to go the limit which, inthis case, would be the finish.
A suppressed shriek escaped Mrs. Sturgis, then she
rushed to her nieceand demanded that the two be separated and the scandal of a street brawlbefore her house averted. Jane did not answer in words, but she threwoff the clutch with which her relative was both urging and staying her,and started toward the passion-flaring pair.
Denied his throat hold by queer-question tactics, Harford settled backto a slugging match in which his heavier weight might lend him anadvantage. Again, as on the park butte-top in a recent electric-lightedmill, Pape adopted grizzly form.
If any one of the excited group heard, none attended certain regardlessutterances with which Irene, the while, had been wooing to win herglare-eyed gift of gratitude. Poised daintily on the curb's edge, shewas endeavoring to regale the steer with a whiff of the long-stemmed redroses which she had brought from the house.
"Here bossy, poor old bossy, see what Rene has brought out for you. My_nice_ moo-moo. Oh, don't shake your horns! Why not enjoy the littlethings in life while you may? C'mon, have a sniff on me!"
Leaning far out, she continued to tease his nostrils with her offeringas the two punchers steadied the beast with remindful pulls upon the"strings" which they had about his horns.
"Sook, bossy! That's cow language, if you get me. You're an absolute_dar-rling_ and I know it. You can't scare me off with those meanglances. Understand me, I like 'em fierce. The fiercer the fonder."
Now, it is highly improbable that the beef-brute took her dare or evengrasped a word of it; more likely that the fresh scent of the rosesrewoke his longing for what he had smelled and striven toward and failedto attain on his first whiff of Central Park. Or perhaps their color waswholly responsible--perhaps it acted as a red flag upon inherited bullinstincts.
At any rate, the Stansbury-Pape escutcheon threw up his part with aviolent cooerdination of horns, head and heels. And he let out a bawlthat announced to the humans about him and their neighbors all hisreturn in spirit to the wild. The tumult of the moment opened with awild-eyed charge upon the nearer of the attendant punchers. So suddenwas this that it could not be avoided--both mount and man "bit" theasphalt. In falling, the unfortunate had sufficient presence of mind tothrow off the hitch of rope about his saddle horn and save himself beingburned in the tangle of hemp.
Half free, the red torpedo started in ponderous pursuit of a FireDepartment runabout that chanced at the moment to clang a right-of-wayfor him up the avenue. The puncher still attached braced his cayuse tothrow the steer when the slack of his rope was taken up. This proved atactical error. While he did not over-rate the strength and willingnessof his mount, he did that of the lariat. At the severance of itsstrands, the reddest wearer of the Queer Question Brand was quite freeand going strong in the general direction of Harlem. The trailing lengthof one rope and fragment of the other seemed to urge him into increasedefforts to outrun them. His head held high. His horns tossedthreateningly. His nostrils snorted acceptance of the invitation of thegrass.
At the beginning of the steer's initiative the issue of East vs. Westhad been unanimously postponed. Pape had sprung to his thrown aide,dragged him from under the floundering horse and made sure that the legwhich had been caught was not seriously injured.
"Jane--Mrs. Sturgis, won't you----"
His appeal to the New Yorkers, started in words and finished in gesture,consigned the man injured within their gates--had they had any gates--totheir mercy. Ordering the puncher of the tactical error to follow, helofted into his own saddle and was off in pursuit of his imported beefon the hoof.
Scarcely three minutes later--certainly not more--Mrs. Helene Sturgisstood deserted upon her front steps, staring up the world-famed highwayafter the strangest chase which she, at least, had witnessed in itshistory. She was all a-tremble from the various and violent protests shehad shrilled--to Jane, to Harfy, to Irene. Her hands were clutchedtogether in remonstrance over what had been. Her face was drawn withterror over what was. Keen was her dread of what might be. A prairiesteer scarcely could run amuck in the heart of New York withoutspreading more or less havoc. And the responsibility--would her owninnocent child, through participation in the pursuit, be forced to sharein that?
On the sidewalk below, the injured puncher was feeling his leg, the painwincing his weathered face. She heard some one come out the door above.
"Jasper?"
"Yes, madame."
She had the butler help the man into the house and herself followed upthe steps. At the top she turned; shivered in the warm spring air;lifting hand to brow, again strained her gaze up the Avenue.
That her niece, whom she expected always to be dependable, should havecaught the epidemic wildness of this Westerner--that Jane should haveleaped her horse and started at top speed after him! And that MillsHarford, after following and overtaking her, should prove too afraid ofher temper forcefully to stop her! Worst of all that her own Ireneshould join the disgraceful and dangerous street race and actuallyoutrun the other two!
A hand against a heart heavy with foreboding the matron pressed as shelooked.... The cow-creature--it was swerving from the straight-away....Was it about to--Yes, it _did_ clear the park wall at a bound.... Thetwo hurdling after probably were Pape and the puncher. A mother's hopethat the next horse to top the hazard might be Jane's died in a groan asshe caught the red flash of the roses to which her daughter had clungthrough all the excitement of the start.... Would she land safely on theother side--this young lady of to-day who once had been herbabe-at-breast?
Evidently Jane, too late to save the situation, but in good time to saveherself a possible fall, had come into some degree of discretion. Sheand Mills were turning in at a convenient gate.
What was it the Why-Not person had said? "Nothing--positively nothing isimpossible."... Perhaps it would do no harm to go inside and pray. Therewas nothing else a woman of yesterday could do. It might help to bringthem all back alive and unbroken as to bones. These modern young folks,what were they coming to--more appropriately, where were they going?
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