Part 32 (1/2)

He broke off abruptly, and Ida met his gaze.

”Thank you,” she said. ”The honesty of that admission would have counted a good deal in your favor had the thing been possible.”

The man straightened himself and clenched one hand.

”Ah!” he said. ”Then it's quite out of the question?”

Ida saw the blood rise into his face, and noticed the sudden hardness in his eyes. Her answer evidently had hurt him more than she expected, and she felt sorry for him. The man's quietness and control and the absence of any dramatic protestation had a favorable effect on her, and she was almost certain that she could have married him had she met him a year earlier. In the meanwhile, however, she had met another man, dressed in old blue duck, with hands hard and scarred; and the well-groomed soldier became of less account as she recalled the man she had left in the mountains. Then Kinnaird turned to her again.

”Can't you give me a chance?” he said. ”If it's necessary, I'll wait; and in the meanwhile I may do something worth while out yonder, if that's any inducement.”

”I'm very sorry,” replied Ida. ”I'm afraid it wouldn't be.”

She looked him steadily in the eyes, and he had sense enough to recognize that no words of his would move her. Though it was not an easy matter, he retained his self-control.

”Well,” he admitted, ”it hurts, but I must bear it. And I want to say that I'm glad in several ways that I met you.” Then the blood crept into his face again. ”I should, at least, like you to think kindly of me, and I'm rather afraid appearances are against me. Because that is so, there's a thing that I should like you to understand. I'd have been proud to marry you had you been a beggar.”

”Thank you,” said Ida, who saw that he meant it. ”I'm more sorry than ever, but the thing is--out of the question.”

Kinnaird gravely held out his arm, but she intimated by a little sign that she did not wish to go back with him, and in a moment the curtains swung to behind him, and he had gone.

Ida became conscious that she was growing cold; but she sat quite still for at least five minutes, thinking hard, and wondering why she felt so sorry to give up Gregory Kinnaird. It was a somewhat perplexing thing that one could be really fond of an eligible man and yet shrink from marrying him, and there was no doubt whatever that the one she had just sent away had in several respects a good deal to offer her.

She admitted that London was, as she expressed it, getting hold of her. She supposed that its influence was insidious, for she no longer looked on its frivolities with half-amused contempt, as she had at first. She realized the vast control that that city had over so much of the rest of the world, and that when some of the men with whom she had lightly laughed and chatted pulled the strings, new industries sprang up far away in the scorching tropics or on the desolate prairie, and new laws were made for hosts of dusky people. It was certainly a legitimate bargain Kinnaird had suggested. She had wealth sufficient for them both, and he could offer her the entry into a world where wealth well directed meant power, and this she undoubtedly desired to possess. There was a vein of ambition in this girl whose father had risen to affluence from a very humble origin, and while she listened to Gregory Kinnaird she had felt that she could rise further still.

She knew that she had will and charm enough to secure, with the aid of her father's money, almost what place she would, and for a few moments she saw before her dazzling possibilities, and then, with the resolution that was part of her nature, she turned her eyes away.

After all, though a high position with the power and pride of leading was a thing to be desired, life, she felt, had as much to offer in different ways; and she recalled a very weary man limping, gray in face, up the steep range. The picture was very plainly before her as she sat there s.h.i.+vering a little, and her heart grew soft toward the wanderer. She knew at last why nothing that Kinnaird could have said or offered would have moved her, and she looked down at the lamps that blinked among the leafless boughs with a great tenderness s.h.i.+ning in her eyes. The stir of the city fell faintly on unheeding ears, and she was conscious only of a longing for the stillness of the vast pine forest through which she had wandered with Weston at her side.

Then she rose abruptly and went back into the lighted room. Though she danced once or twice, and talked to a number of people who, perhaps fortunately, did not seem to expect her to say anything very intelligent, she was glad when Mrs. Kinnaird sent for her, and they and Arabella drove away together. The elder lady troubled her with no questions; but soon after they reached home she came into the room where Ida sat, and as she left the door open the girl saw Gregory go down the stairway with a letter in his hand. He met his sister near the foot of it, and his voice, which seemed a trifle strained, came up to Ida clearly.

”I'll just run out and post this. I've told those people that I'll go as soon as they like,” he said.

Then Mrs. Kinnaird quietly closed the door before she crossed the room and sat down near the girl.

”It's rather hard to bear,” she said. ”Perhaps I feel it the more because Arabella will leave me soon.”

The woman's quietness troubled Ida, and her eyes grew hazy.

”Oh,” she said, ”though it isn't quite my fault, how you must blame me. It's most inadequate, but I can only say that I'm very sorry.”

”I suppose what you told Gregory is quite irrevocable?” inquired her companion.

Ida saw the tense anxiety in the woman's eyes, and her answer cost her an effort.

”Yes, quite,” she said. ”I wish I could say anything else.”

”I can't blame you, my dear. I blame only myself,” said Mrs. Kinnaird.

”I'm afraid I brought this trouble on Gregory, and it makes my share of it harder to bear. Still, there is something to be said. I wanted Gregory to marry you because I wanted him near me, but I can't have you think that I would have tried to bring about a match between him and any girl with money. My dear,” and she leaned forward toward her companion, ”I am fond of you.”