Part 31 (2/2)

”I have to go to the Klappan,” Bill apprised his wife one evening.

”Want to come along?”

Hazel hesitated. Her first instinctive feeling was one of reluctance to retrace that nerve-trying trail. But neither did she wish to be separated from him.

”I see you don't,” he observed dryly. ”Well, I can't say that I blame you. It's a stiff trip. If your wind and muscle are in as poor shape as mine, I guess it would do you up--the effort would be greater than any possible pleasure.”

”I'm sorry I can't feel any enthusiasm for such a journey,” she remarked candidly. ”I could go as far as the coast with you, and meet you there when you come out. How long do you expect to be in there?”

”I don't know exactly,” he replied. ”I'm not going in from the coast, though. I'm taking the Ashcroft-Fort George Trail. I have to take in a pack train and more men and get work started on a decent scale.”

”But you won't have to stay there all summer and oversee the work, will you?” she inquired anxiously.

”I should,” he said.

For a second or two he drummed on the table top.

”I should do that. It's what I had in mind when I started this thing,”

he said wistfully. ”I thought we'd go in this spring and rush things through the good weather, and come out ahead of the snow. We could stay a while at the ranch, and break up the winter with a jaunt here or some place.”

”But is there any real necessity for you to stay on the ground?” She pursued her own line of thought. ”I should think an undertaking of this size would justify hiring an expert to take charge of the actual mining operations. Won't you have this end of it to look after?”

”Lorimer and Brooks are eminently capable of upholding the dignity and importance of that sign they've got smeared across the windows downtown,” he observed curtly. ”The chief labor of the office they've set up will be to divide the proceeds. The work will be done and the money made in the Klappan Range. You sabe that, don't you?”

”I'm not stupid,” she pouted.

”I know you're not, little person,” he said quietly. ”But you've changed a heap in the last few months. You don't seem to be my pal any more. You've fallen in love with this b.u.t.terfly life. You appear to like me just as much as ever, but if you could you'd sentence me to this kid-glove existence for the rest of my natural life. Great Caesar's ghost!” he burst out. ”I've laid around like a well-fed poodle for seven months. And look at me--I'm mus.h.!.+ Ten miles with a sixty-pound pack would make my tongue hang out. I'm thick-winded, and twenty pounds over-weight--and you talk calmly about my settling down to office work!”

His semi-indignation, curiously enough, affected Hazel as being altogether humorous. She had a smile-compelling vision of that straight, lean-limbed, powerful body developing a protuberant waistline and a double chin. That was really funny, so far-fetched did it seem.

And she laughed. Bill froze into rigid silence.

”I'm going to-morrow,” he said suddenly. ”I think, on the whole, it'll be just as well if you don't go. Stay here and enjoy yourself. I'll transfer some more money to your account. I think I'll drop down to the club.”

She followed him out into the hall, and, as he wriggled into his coat, she had an impulse to throw her arms around his neck and declare, in all sincerity, that she would go to the Klappan or to the north pole or any place on earth with him, if he wanted her. But by some peculiar feminine reasoning she reflected in the same instant that if Bill were away from her in a few weeks he would be all the more glad to get back.

That closed her mouth. She felt too secure in his affection to believe it could be otherwise. And then she would cheerfully capitulate and go back with him to his beloved North, to the Klappan or the ranch or wherever he chose. It was not wise to be too meek or obedient where a husband was concerned. That was another mite of wisdom she had garnered from the wives of her circle.

So she kissed Bill good-by at the station next day with perfect good humor and no parting emotion of any particular keenness. And if he were a trifle sober he showed no sign of resentment, nor uttered any futile wishes that she could accompany him.

”So long,” he said from the car steps. ”I'll keep in touch--all I can.”

Then he was gone.

Somehow, his absence made less difference than Hazel had antic.i.p.ated.

She had secretly expected to be very lonely at first. And she was not.

She began to realize that, unconsciously, they had of late so arranged their manner of life that separation was a question of degree rather than kind. It seemed that she could never quite forego the impression that Bill was near at hand. She always thought of him as downtown or in the living-room, with his feet up on the mantel and a cigar in his mouth. Even when in her hand she held a telegram dated at a point five hundred or a thousand miles or double that distance away she did not experience the feeling of complete bodily absence. She always felt as if he were near. Only at night, when there was no long arm to pillow her head, no good-night kiss as she dozed into slumber, she missed him, realized that he was far away. Even when the days marched past, mustering themselves in weekly and monthly platoons and Bill still remained in the Klappan, she experienced no dreary leadenness of soul.

Her time pa.s.sed pleasantly enough.

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