Part 30 (1/2)

Young as Ida was, she had a grip of essential things, and a dislike of shams. It generally happened, too, that, when she felt strongly on any subject, she sooner or later expressed her thoughts in forcible words; and before that afternoon was over she and Arabella Kinnaird between them disturbed the composure of more than one of Mrs. Kinnaird's guests.

Tea was being laid out on a little table beneath the beech when Weston strolled across the lawn. He was redder in face than when Ida had last seen him, and a trifle heavier of expression. Pus.h.i.+ng unceremoniously past two of the women, he dropped into a basket-chair, which bent under him, and glanced around at the others with coldly, a.s.sertive eyes. Ida, watching him, became conscious of a sense of repulsion and indignation. This arrogant, indulgent, useless man had, it seemed, not the manners of a western ranch-hand. He accepted a cup of tea from Mrs. Kinnaird with an ungraciousness which aroused Ida to downright anger; and shortly afterward he contrived to spill a quant.i.ty of the liquid upon Arabella's dress, for which he offered no excuses, though he blamed the narrow-bottomed cup. Then some one, who of course could not foresee the result, asked Arabella if she would show them some of her Canadian sketches.

Miss Kinnaird made no objection, and when, soon after the tea was cleared away, the easel she sent for had been set up in the shadow of the beech, she displayed on it several small canvases and water-color drawings. There were vistas of snow mountains, stretches of frothing rivers, and colonnades of towering firs, until at last she laid a canvas on the easel.

”This,” she said, ”is, I think, the best figure drawing I ever did.”

Ida, leaning forward in her chair, felt the blood creep into her face.

There was no doubt that the sketch was striking. It showed a man standing tensely poised, with a big, glinting ax in his hand. He was lean and lithely muscular, and his face was brown and very grim; but the artist had succeeded in fixing in its expression the elusive but recognizable something which is born of restraint, clean living, and arduous physical toil. It is to be seen in the eyes of those who, living in Spartan simplicity, make long marches with the dog-sledges in the Arctic frost, drive the logs down roaring rivers, or toil sixteen hours daily under a blazing sun in the western harvest field.

In all probability it was as plainly stamped on the honest countenance of many an unconsidered English Tommy who plodded doggedly forward with the relief columns across the dusty veldt. Drivers of great expresses, miners, quarrymen, now and then wear that look. Springing, as it does, not from strength of body, but from the subjugation of the latter and all fleshy shrinking and weariness, it links man with the greatness of the unseen.

There was only the one figure silhouetted against long rows of dusky pines, but the meaning of the way in which the hard, scarred hands were clenched on the big ax was very plain, and Ida could fill in from memory the form of the big chopper and the cl.u.s.ters of expectant men.

”Excellent!” said one of the guests. ”That fellow means to fight. He's in hard training, too, and that has now and then a much bigger effect than the toughening of his muscles upon the man who submits himself to it. Is it a portrait or a type?”

The speaker was from the metropolis, and while Arabella hesitated, Ida answered him with a suggestive ring in her voice.

”It's both, one should like to think,” she said. ”The man came from England; and if you can send us out more of that type we shall be satisfied.”

Then she and the questioner became conscious of the awkward silence that had fallen upon the rest. They belonged to the dales, and they glanced covertly at Weston, who was gazing at the picture, purple in face, and with a very hard look in his eyes. Ida guessed that it was the scarred workman's hands and the track-grader's old blue s.h.i.+rt and tattered duck that had hurt his very curious pride. Still, it was evident that he could face the situation.

”Yes,” he said, a trifle hoa.r.s.ely, ”it's a portrait--an excellent one.

In fact, as some of you are quite aware, it's my son.”

He rose, and crossing a strip of lawn sat down heavily near Ida. The latter, looking around, saw Arabella's satisfied smile suddenly subside; but the next moment Weston, leaning forward, laid his hand roughly on her arm.

”Why Clarence permitted that portrait to be painted I don't quite understand, though he was fond of flying in the face of all ideas of decency,” he said. ”You must have met him out yonder. What was he doing?”

”Shoveling gravel on a railroad that my father was grading,” said Ida, with rather grim amus.e.m.e.nt, for she was determined that the man should face the plain reality, even if it hurt him.

”Shoveling gravel!” said Weston. ”But he is my son.”

”I'm afraid that doesn't count out yonder. In any case, he's in one sense in reasonably good company. Did you send your son to Sandhurst or an English university?”

”I didn't,” said the man, gazing at her with hot, confused anger in his eyes. ”For one thing, he hadn't brains enough, and, for another, there were too many charges on the property. What do you mean by good company?”

”Just a moment before I answer. Why did you turn him out?”

”That does not describe it. He went. We had a difference of opinion.

He would hear no reason.”

”Exactly,” said Miss Weston, who now appeared close by. ”Since you seem to have heard a little about the matter, I feel I must say that my brother deliberately left us at a time when his father had expected him to be of service to him.”

Ida did not know whether the others could hear what was being said, as there was a strip of lawn between them and where she sat, but she felt that it did not greatly matter. She had no pity for this man or his daughter, who preferred to malign the absent rather than to admit an unpleasant fact. She would strip them of any solace they might find in shams, after which there was a little more to be said.

”The difference of opinion was, I believe, decided with a riding-crop,” she said. ”Still, that is a side issue, and I will tell you what I meant by good company. We have quite a few of your graduates out yonder laying railroad ties, as well as lawyers who have got into trouble over trust money, and army men who couldn't meet their turf debts or were a little too smart at cards. Some of them are of unexceptionable family--at least from your point of view. As a rule, they sleep packed like cattle in reeking redwood shacks, and either dress in rags or mend their own clothes. Among their companions are ranchers who can't live all the year on the produce of their half-cleared land, absconders from half the Pacific Slope cities, and runaway sailormen. The task set before them every morning would kill most of you.”

Weston, who had winced once or twice, glanced apprehensively toward the rest. They were sitting very still, and their appearance suggested that, whether warrantable or not, they were listening.

”His insane folly has brought him down to that?” he asked.