Part 43 (1/2)
”But isn't it dangerous?” Mrs. Rathburn protested.
”Not unless he's mistook for one of the Outfit, then they might try a chunk of lead on him,” Teeters rea.s.sured her.
Miss Rathburn, having recovered her poise together with her drawl, was regarding the high l.u.s.ter on her nails when Disston came up on the porch before leaving.
”I am sorry I was rude, Beth,” he said earnestly.
”Were you?” indifferently. ”I hadn't noticed it.”
”I did a contemptible thing to that girl once,” he continued, ”and I feel that the least I can do to make amends is to refuse to allow her to be spoken of slightingly in my presence.”
”Quite right, Hughie. You are a credit to our southern chivalry.” Miss Rathburn suppressed a yawn with the tips of her pink tapering fingers.
”When I come back,” he spoke propitiatingly, ”the day after to-morrow, probably we'll go and see that petrified tree of which Teeters told us.”
”A lovely bribe,” languidly, ”but don't hurry, for mother and I are leaving to-morrow.”
”You mean that?”
”Certainly.”
”I won't believe it.”
”You always were incredulous, Hughie.”
”I don't suppose I can convince you that I am very fond of you, and that I shall feel badly if you leave like this?”
This was more like it:--Miss Rathburn lowered her beautiful lashes.
”You haven't tried, have you?” she asked softly.
She looked very desirable at the moment--pink and white and soft and fluffy--all that the traditions of his family demanded in a woman. He knew perfectly what was expected of him, and there was every reason why he should ask her to marry him, and none at all why he should not, yet somehow when he opened his lips to ask, ”Will you let me?” the words choked him. He said, instead, with the utmost cordiality:
”Don't you dare do anything so unfriendly as to leave without saying good-bye to me. Will you promise to wait until I return?”
If she had obeyed her impulse she would have shrieked at him:
”No! no! no! Not a minute, if you go to see that woman!” She would have liked to make him choose between them, but she dared not put him to the test for fear that she would place herself in a position from which her pride would not allow her to recede.
Beth wept in chagrin and rage while Disston rode away buoyantly, marvelling at his own light-heartedness, tingling with the old-time eagerness which used to come to him the moment he was in the saddle with his horse's head turned toward Bitter Creek.
He had stubbornly fought his desire to visit Kate again. What was the use, he demanded of himself sternly. She did not want to see him and virtually had said so. She had changed radically; she cared only for her sheep--even Teeters admitted that much. Anything beyond a warm friends.h.i.+p between them was, of course, impossible. She was not of his world, she did not ”belong,” and had no desire to. She could no more preside at a dinner table or pour tea gracefully, as would be expected of his wife, than Beth could shear a sheep or earmark one.
These things and many others he had told himself a thousand times to stop the longing he had to saddle his horse and go to her. What a weakling he was, he thought contemptuously, that he could not put her out of his mind and do the obviously right and proper thing by asking Beth to marry him, and so end forever this disquieting conflict within him--a conflict that had not been in his calculations when he had planned a happy summer.
It was physical attraction, he argued, together with the interest aroused by her unusual personality, which drew him to Kate--a pa.s.sing fancy, a curious, inexplicable infatuation; but, he a.s.sured himself stoutly, not at all the foundation upon which to build for permanency.
Yet as he rode towards the mountains with his eyes fixed upon the low pa.s.s to which Teeters had directed him, he experienced the first real thrill of carefree happiness that had come to him since his arrival.
The trail was a long and a hard one. His horse lost a shoe and limped badly, so, as the day waned, he walked frequently to spare the animal.
He was tired, but too eager to be conscious of it. He wondered what she would be doing when he found her, and whether he could surprise something like the old-time welcome from her. How her eyes used to sparkle when he rode up to her! He smiled to himself as he recalled her smile--frank, beaming, her face radiant with undisguised pleasure.