Part 21 (1/2)
”Isn't it a little too late for either of us to practice the somewhat monotonous domestic virtues? You need not be afraid of hurting my feelings, Millicent, by veiling your meaning. But, in the first place, at the time you transferred your affections to me I had the money, and, in the second, I must either carry out what you call my programme or go down with a crash shortly. If luck favors me the prize I am striving for is, however, worth winning, but things are going most confoundedly badly just now. In fact, I shall be driven into a corner unless you can help me.”
Mrs. Leslie possessed no exalted code of honor, but, in her present frame of mind, her husband's words excited fear and suspicion, and she asked sharply, ”What is it you want me to do?”
”I will try to explain. You know something of my business. I sent up a clever rascal to--well, to pa.s.s as a workman seeking employment, and so enable us to forestall some of Savine's mechanical improvements. He took the money I gave him and started, but we have never seen him since, and it is particularly desirable that I should know whether he tried and failed or what has become of him. If the man made his exact commission known it would cost me my place. The very people who would applaud me if successful would be the first to make a scapegoat of me otherwise.”
”Your explanation is not quite lucid, but how could I get at the truth?”
”Ingratiate yourself with Miss Savine, or get that crack-brained aunt of hers to cure your neuralgia. There are also two young premium pupils, sons of leading Montreal citizens, in Mr. Savine's service, who dance attendance upon the fair Helen continually. It shouldn't be difficult to flatter them a little and set them talking.”
”Do you think women are utterly foolish, or that they converse about dams and earthworks?” asked Millicent, trying to check her rising indignation.
”No, but I know a good many of you have the devil's own cunning, and there can be but few much keener than you. Women in this country know a great deal more about their lawful protectors' affairs than they generally do at home, and Miss Savine is sufficiently proud not to care whose wife you were if she took a fancy to you.”
”It would be utterly useless!” Leslie looked his wife over with coolly critical approval, noting how the soft lamplight sparkled in the pale gold cl.u.s.ters of her hair, the beauty that still hung to her somewhat careworn face, and how the costly dress enhanced the symmetry of a finely-moulded frame.
”Then why can't you confine your efforts to the men? You are pretty and clever enough to wheedle secrets out of Thurston's self even, now you have apparently become reconciled to him.”
For the first time since the revelations that followed Leslie's downfall a red brand of shame and anger flamed in Millicent's cheeks.
She rose, facing the speaker with an almost breathless ”How dare you?
Is there no limit to the price I must pay for my folly? Thurston was----. But how could any woman compare him with you?”
”Sit down again, Millicent,” suggested Leslie with an uneasy laugh.
”These heroics hardly become you--and n.o.body can extort a great deal in return for--nothing better than you. In any case, it's no use now debating whether one or both of us were foolish. I'm speaking no more than the painful truth when I say that if I can't get the man back into my hands I shall have to make a break without a dollar from British Columbia. Since you have offended your English friends past forgiveness, G.o.d knows what would become of you if that happened, while Thurston would marry Miss Savine and sail on to riches--confusion to him!”
Millicent was never afterwards certain why she accepted the quest from which she shrank with loathing, at first. While her husband proceeded to substantiate the truth of his statement, she was conscious of rage and shame, as well as a profound contempt for him; and, because of it, she felt an illogical desire to inflict suffering upon the man whom she now considered had too readily accepted his rejection. Naturally, she disliked Miss Savine. She was possessed by an abject fear of poverty, and so, turning a troubled face towards the man, she said:
”I don't know that I shall ever forgive you, and I feel that you will live to regret this night's work bitterly. However, as you say, it is over late for us to fear losing the self-respect we parted with long ago. Rest contented--I will try.”
”That is better. We are what ill-luck or the devil made us,” replied Leslie, laying his hand on his wife's white shoulder, but in spite of her recent declaration Millicent shrank from his touch.
”Your fingers burn me. Take them away. As I said, I will help you, but if there was any faint hope of happiness or better things left us, you have killed it,” she declared in a decided tone.
”I should say the chance was hardly worth counting on,” answered Leslie, as he withdrew to soothe himself with a brandy-and-soda.
Millicent sat still in her chair, with her hands clenched hard on the arms of it, staring straight before her.
CHAPTER XVII
THE INFATUATION OF ENGLISH JIM
It was perhaps hardly wise of Geoffrey Thurston to suddenly promote English Jim from the position of camp cook to that of amanuensis.
Geoffrey, however, found himself hard pressed when it became necessary to divide his time between Vancouver and the scene of practical operations, and he remembered that the man he had promoted had been Helen's _protege_. James Gillow was a fair draughtsman, also, and, if not remarkable otherwise for mental capacity, wielded a facile pen, and Geoffrey found it a relief to turn his rapidly-increasing correspondence over to him. It was for this reason Gillow accompanied him on a business trip to Victoria.
English Jim enjoyed the visit, the more so because he found one or two acquaintances who had achieved some degree of prosperity in that fair city. He was entertained so well that on the morning of Geoffrey's return he boarded the steamer contented with himself and the world in general. He was perfectly sober, so he afterwards decided, or on board a rolling vessel he could never have succeeded in working out quant.i.ties from rough sketches Thurston gave him. But he had breakfasted with his friends, just before sailing, and the valedictory potations had increased, instead of a.s.suaging, his thirst.
The steamer was a fast one. The day was pleasant with the first warmth of Spring, and Geoffrey sat under the lee of a deckhouse languidly enjoying a cigar and looking out across the sparkling sea. Gillow, who came up now and then for a breath of air, envied him each time he returned to pore over papers that rose and fell perplexingly on one end of the saloon table. It was hard to get his scale exactly on the lines of the drawings; the sunrays that beat in through the skylights dazzled his eyes, and his sight did not become much keener after each visit to the bar. Nevertheless, few persons would have suspected English Jim of alcoholic indulgence as he jotted down weights and quant.i.ties in his pocket-book.
Meantime, Thurston began to find the view of the snow-clad Olympians grow monotonous. It is true that every pinnacle was silhouetted, a spire of unsullied whiteness, against softest azure. The peaks towered, a sight to entrance the vision--ethereally majestic above a cerulean sea--but Geoffrey had seen rather too much snow unpleasantly close at hand within the last few months. Therefore, he opened the newspaper beside him, and frowned to see certain rumors he had heard in Victoria embodied in an article on the Crown lands policy. Anyone with sufficient knowledge to read between the lines could identify the writer's instances of how gross injustice might be done the community with certain conditional grants made to Savine.