CHAPTER XVIII
BEATRICE GIVES AN OPTION
It was not until Johnnie had laid the case before Miss Whitford andrestated it under the impression that she could not have understoodthat his confidence ebbed. Even then he felt that he must have bungledit in the telling and began to marshal his facts a third time. He hadexpected an eager interest, a quick enthusiasm. Instead, he found inhis young mistress a spirit beyond his understanding. Her manner had atouch of cool disdain, almost of contempt, while she listened to histale. This was not at all in the picture he had planned.
She asked no questions and made no comments. What he had to tell metwith chill silence. Johnnie's guileless narrative had made clear toher that Clay had brought Kitty home about midnight, had mixed a drinkfor her, and had given her his own clothes to replace her wet ones.Somehow the cattleman's robe, pajamas, and bedroom slippers obtrudedunduly from his friend's story. Even the Runt felt this. He began toperceive himself a helpless medium of wrong impressions. When he triedto explain he made matters worse.
"I suppose you know that when the manager of your apartment house findsout she's there he'll send her packing." So Beatrice summed up whenshe spoke at last.
"No, ma'am, I reckon not. You see we done told him she is Clay'ssister jes' got in from the West," the puncher explained.
"Oh, I see." The girl's lip curled and her clean-cut chin lifted atrifle. "You don't seem to have overlooked anything. No, I don'tthink I care to have anything to do with your arrangements."
"She's an awful pretty cute little thing," the puncher added, hoping tomodify her judgment.
"Indeed!"
Beatrice turned and walked swiftly into the house. A pulse of angerwas beating in her soft throat. She felt a sense of outrage. To ClayLindsay she had given herself generously in spirit. She had riskedsomething in introducing him to her friends. They might have laughedat him for his slight social lapses. They might have rejected him forhis lack of background. They had done neither. He was so genuinely aman that he had won his way instantly. In this City of Bluff, as O.Henry dubs New York, his simplicity had rung true as steel. Still, shehad taken a chance and felt she deserved some recognition of it on hispart. This he had never given. He had based their friendship onequality simply. She liked it in him, though her vanity had resentedit a little. But this was different. She was still young enough,still so little a woman of the world, that she set a rigid standardwhich she expected her friends to meet. She had believed in Clay, andnow he was failing her.
Pacing up and down her room, little fists clenched, her soul inpassionate turmoil, Beatrice went over it all again as she had donethrough a sleepless night. She had given him so much, and he hadseemed to give her even more. Hours filled with a keen-edged delightjumped to her memory, hours that had carried her away from thefalseness of social fribble to clean, wind-swept, open spaces of themind. And after this--after he had tacitly recognized her claim onhim--he had insulted her before her friends by deserting his guests togo off with this hussy he had been spending weeks to search for.
Now his little henchman had the imbecility to ask her help while thisgirl was living at Clay Lindsay's apartment, passing herself off as hissister, and proposing to stay there ostensibly as the housekeeper. Shefelt degraded, humiliated, she told herself. Not for a moment did sheadmit, perhaps she did not know, that an insane jealousy was floodingher being, that her indignation was based on personal as well as moralgrounds.
Something primitive stirred in her--a flare of feminine ferocity. Shefelt hot to the touch, an active volcano ready for eruption. If onlyshe could get a chance to strike back in a way that would hurt, towound him as deeply as he had her!
Pat to her desire came the opportunity. Clay's card was brought in toher by Jenkins.
"Tell Mr. Lindsay I'll see him in a few minutes," she told the man.
The few minutes stretched to a long quarter of an hour before shedescended. To the outward eye at least Miss Whitford looked a woman ofthe world, sheathed in a plate armor of conventionality. As soon ashis eyes fell on her Clay knew that this pale, slim girl in theclose-fitting gown was a stranger to him. Her eyes, star-bright andburning like live coals, warned him that the friend whose youth had runout so eagerly to meet his was hidden deep in her to-day.
"I reckon I owe you and Mr. Whitford an apology," he said. "No need totell you how I happened to leave last night. I expect you know."
"I know why you left--yes."
"I'd like to explain it to you so you'll understand."
"Why take the trouble? I think I understand." She spoke in an even,schooled voice that set him at a distance.
"Still, I want you to know how I feel."
"Is that important? I see what you do. That is enough. Your friendMr. Green has carefully brought me the details I didn't know."
Clay flushed. Her clear voice carried an edge of scorn. "You mustn'tjudge by appearances. I know you wouldn't be unfair. I had to takeher home and look after her."
"I don't quite see why--unless, of course, you wanted to," the girlanswered, tapping the arm of her chair with impatient finger-tips, eyeson the clock. "But of course it isn't necessary I should see."
Her cavalier treatment of him did not affect the gentleimperturbability of the Westerner.
"Because I'm a white man, because she's a little girl who came from mycountry and can't hold her own here, because she was sick and chilledand starving. Do you see now?"
"No, but it doesn't matter. I'm not the keeper of your conscience, Mr.Lindsay," she countered, with hard lightness.
"You're judging me just the same."
Her eyes attacked him. "Am I?"
"Yes." The level gaze of the man met hers calmly. "What have I donethat you don't like?"
She lost some of her debonair insolence that expressed itself inindifference.
"I'd ask that if I were you," she cried scornfully. "Can you tell methat this--friend of yours--is a good girl?"
"I think so. She's been up against it. Whatever she may have doneshe's been forced to do."
"Excuses," she murmured.
"If you'd ever known what it was to be starving--"
Her smoldering anger broke into a flame. "Good of you to compare mewith her! That's the last straw!"
"I'm not comparing you. I'm merely saying that you can't judge her.How could you, when your life has been so different?"
"Thank Heaven for that."
"If you'd let me bring her here to see you--"
"No, thanks."
"You're unjust."
"You think so?"
"And unkind. That's not like the little friend I've come to--like somuch."
"You're kind enough for two, Mr. Lindsay. She really doesn't needanother friend so long as she has you," she retorted with a flash ofcontemptuous eyes. "In New York we're not used to being so kind topeople of her sort."
Clay lifted a hand. "Stop right there, Miss Beatrice. You don't wantto say anything you'll be sorry for."
"I'll say this," she cut back. "The men I know wouldn't invite a womanto their rooms at midnight and pass her off as their sister--and thenexpect people to know her. They would be kinder to themselves--and totheir own reputations."
She was striking out savagely, relentlessly, in spite of the betterjudgment that whispered restraint. She wanted desperately to hurt him,as he had hurt her, even though she had to behave badly to do it.
"Will you tell me what else there was to do? Where could I have takenher at that time of night? Are reputable hotels open at midnight tolone women, wet and ragged, who come without baggage either alone orescorted by a man?"
"I'm not telling you what you ought to have done, Mr. Lindsay," sheanswered with a touch of hauteur. "But since you ask me--why couldn'tyou have given her money and let her find a place for herself?"
"Because that wouldn't have saved her."
"Oh, wouldn't it?" she retorted dryly.
He walk
ed over to the fireplace and put an elbow on the corner of themantel. The blood leaped in the veins of the girl as she looked athim, a man strong as tested steel, quiet and forceful, carrying hissplendid body with the sinuous grace that comes only from perfectlysynchronized muscles. At that moment she hated him because she couldnot put him in the wrong.
"Lemme tell you a story, Miss Beatrice," he said presently. "Mebbeit'll show you what I mean. I was runnin' cattle in the Galiuros fiveyears ago and I got caught in a storm 'way up in the hills. When itrains in my part of Arizona, which ain't often, it sure does come downin sheets. The clay below the rubble on the slopes got slick as ice.My hawss, a young one, slipped and fell on me, clawed back to its feet,and bolted. Well, there I was with my laig busted, forty miles fromeven a whistlin' post in the desert, gettin' wetter and colder everyblessed minute. Heaps of times in my life I've felt more comfortablethan I did right then. I was hogtied to that shale ledge with mybroken ankle, as you might say. And the weather and my game laig andthings generally kept gettin' no better right along hour after hour.
"There wasn't a chance in a million that anybody would hear, but I keptfirin' off my forty-five on the off hope. And just before night a girlon a _pinto_ came down the side of that uncurried hill round a bend andgot me. She took me to a cabin hidden in the bottom of a canon andlooked after me four days. Her father, a prospector, had gone intoTucson for supplies and we were alone there. She fed me, nursed me,and waited on me. We divided a one-room twelve-by-sixteen cabin.Understand, we were four days alone together before her dad came back,and all the time the sky was lettin' down a terrible lot of water.When her father showed up he grinned and said, 'Lucky for you Myrtleheard that six-gun of yore's pop!' He never thought one evil thingabout either of us. He just accepted the situation as necessary. Nowthe question is, what ought she to have done? Left me to die on thathillside?"
"Of course not. That's different," protested Beatrice indignantly.
"I don't see it. What she did was more embarrassing for her than whatI did for Kitty. At least it would have been mightily so if she hadn'tused her good hawss sense and forgot that she was a lone young femaleand I was a man. That's what I did the other night. Just becausethere are seven or eight million human beings here the obligation tolook out for Kitty was no less."
"New York isn't Arizona."
"You bet it ain't. We don't sit roostin' on a fence when folks needour help out there. We go to it."
"You can't do that sort of thing here. People talk."
"Sure, and hens cackle. Let 'em!"
"There are some things men don't understand," she told him with an acidlittle smile of superiority. "When a girl cries a little they thinkshe's heartbroken. Very likely she's laughing at them up her sleeve.This girl's making a fool of you, if you want the straight truth."
"I don't think so."
His voice was so quietly confident it nettled her.
"I suppose, then, you think I'm ungenerous," she charged.
The deep-set gray-blue eyes looked at her steadily. There was a wiselittle smile in them.
"Is that what you think?" she charged.
"I think you'll be sorry when you think it over."
She was annoyed at her inability to shake him, at the steadfastnesswith which he held to his point of view.
"You're trying to put me in the wrong," she flamed. "Well, I won'thave it. That's all. You may take your choice, Mr. Lindsay. Eithersend that girl away--give her up--have nothing to do with her, or--"
"Or--?"
"Or please don't come here to see me any more."
He waited, his eyes steadily on her. "Do you sure enough mean that,Miss Beatrice?"
Her heart sank. She knew she had gone too far, but she was tooimperious to draw back now.
"Yes, that's just what I mean."
"I'm sorry. You're leavin' me no option. I'm not a yellow dog.Sometimes I'm 'most a man. I'm goin' to do what I think is right."
"Of course," she responded lightly. "If our ideas of what that isdiffer--"
"They do."
"It's because we've been brought up differently, I suppose." Sheachieved a stifled little yawn behind her hand.
"You've said it." He gave it to her straight from the shoulder. "Allyore life you've been pampered. When you wanted a thing all you had todo was to reach out a hand for it. Folks were born to wait on you, byyore way of it. You're a spoiled kid. You keep these manicuredlah-de-dah New York lads steppin'. Good enough. Be as high-heeled asyou're a mind to. I'll step some too for you--when you smile at meright. But it's time to serve notice that in my country folks growman-size. You ask me to climb up the side of a house to pick you a bitof ivy from under the eaves, and I reckon I'll take a whirl at it. Butyou ask me to turn my back on a friend, and I've got to say, 'Nothin'doin'.' And if you was just a few years younger I'd advise yore pa toput you in yore room and feed you bread and water for askin' it."
The angry color poured into her cheeks. She clenched her hands tillthe nails bit her palms. "I think you're the most hateful man I evermet," she cried passionately.
His easy smile taunted her. "Oh, no, you don't. You just think youthink it. Now, I'm goin' to light a shuck. I'll be sayin' good-bye,Miss Beatrice, until you send for me."
"And that will be never," she flung at him.
He rose, bowed, and walked out of the room.
The street door closed behind him. Beatrice bit her lip to keep frombreaking down before she reached her room.
The Big-Town Round-Up Page 19