Part 24 (1/2)

Ida started at this, and leaned forward eagerly to catch Weston's answer.

”I fancied there might be a little risk in it, and I had Miss Stirling with me.”

Ida felt her face grow warm as she remembered that she had twitted him with having less nerve than the Indians; but Grenfell apparently was not yet satisfied.

”You could have sent the girl on, and then have shot the fall,” he said. ”It would have saved you quite a lot of trouble.”

”Oh, yes,” agreed Weston, who appeared to resent his curiosity.

”Still, I didn't.”

Grenfell moved away, and Ida recognized now that, in spite of a good deal of provocation, Weston had acted with laudable delicacy. It was clear that his obduracy in the matter of taking her down the fall had been due to a regard for her safety. He had also saddled himself with a laborious task to prevent this fact from becoming apparent. She fancied that, had she been in his place, she could have arranged the thing more neatly; but, after all, that did not detract from the delicacy of his purpose, and she sat very still, with a rather curious expression in her face, until Grenfell came to announce that supper was ready.

CHAPTER XV

THE ROCK POOL

Ida was quietly gracious to Weston during the week that followed his opposition to her wishes at the portage. This was not so much because she knew she had been wrong in insisting on his taking her down the fall, for, after all, that matter was a trifling one, but it was more because she was pleased by the part that he had played. The man, it seemed, had preferred to face her anger rather than to allow her to run any personal risk, and afterward had undertaken a very laborious task to prevent her from discovering why he had borne it. This was as far as she would go, though she was aware that it left something to be explained.

In any case, there was a subtle change in her manner toward Weston.

She had never attempted to patronize him, but now she placed him almost on the footing of an intimate acquaintance. It was done tactfully and naturally, but Mrs. Kinnaird noticed it, and took alarm.

Why she should do so was not very clear, for Stirling certainly had not encouraged her to put herself to any trouble on his daughter's account, but perhaps it was because Ida was going to England, and she had a well-favored son. It is also possible that, being a lady of conventional ideas, she acted instinctively and could not help herself. That a young woman of extensive possessions should encourage a camp-packer was, from her point of view, unthinkable.

For this reason, perhaps, it was not astonis.h.i.+ng that there was for some little time a quiet battle between the two. When Ida desired to go fis.h.i.+ng, Mrs. Kinnaird suggested something else, or contrived that the packer should be busy. Failing this, she patiently bore discomforts from which she usually shrank, and put her companions to a good deal of trouble by favoring them with her company. The major naturally did not notice what was going on, and she did not enlighten him; nor did Weston, for that matter; while Arabella stood aside and looked on with quiet amus.e.m.e.nt. It is probable that had Ida stooped to diplomacy, she would have been beaten, but, as it was, her uncompromising imperiousness stood her in good stead.

In any case, she went up the river alone with Weston on several occasions, in spite of Mrs. Kinnaird, and one morning the two sat together among the boulders beside a pool not far above the fall.

There had been heavy rain, and the stream, which had risen, swirled in an angry eddy along the rock that rose close in front of them from that side of the pool. A great drift-log, peeled white, with only stumps of branches left, had jammed its thinner top on a half-submerged ledge, and the great b.u.t.t, which was water borne, every now and then smote against the rock. The pines along the river were still wet, and the wilderness was steeped in ambrosial odors. Ida sat with thoughtful eyes regarding the endless rows of trunks, through which here and there a ray of dazzling sunlight struck; but her whole attention was not occupied with that great colonnade.

”I think you were right when you said that the bush gets hold of one,”

she said. ”I sometimes feel that I don't want to go back to the cities at all.”

Weston smiled, though there was something curious in his manner. It seemed to suggest that he was trying to face an unpleasant fact.

”Well,” he said, ”I told you that would probably be the case. In one way it's unfortunate, because I suppose you will have to go. You belong to civilization, and it will certainly claim you.”

”And don't you?”

Weston made a little whimsical gesture.

”In the meanwhile, I don't quite know where I belong. It's perplexing.”

Ida noticed the ”in the meanwhile.” It had, she fancied, a certain significance, and hinted that by and by he expected to be more sure of his station.

”You don't wish to go back?” she asked.

”No,” said Weston decisively. ”Anyway, not to the packed boarding-house and the flour-mill. Even in winter, when these rivers are frozen hard and the pines stand white and motionless under the Arctic frost, this is a good deal nicer.”

”You're getting away from the point,” said Ida, laughing. ”I meant to England.”