Part 17 (2/2)

”Say, auntie, you've observed uncle lately--I mean how strange he is?

You've noticed how often, now, he is--is not himself?”

”Whisky,” said the old lady, uncompromisingly. ”Yes, dear, I have. It is quite the usual thing to smell' old man Smith's vile liquor when John Allandale is about. I'm glad you've spoken. I did not like to say anything to you about it. John's on a bad trail.”

”Yes, and a trail with a long, downhill gradient,” replied Jacky, with a rueful little smile. ”Say, aunt,” she went on, springing suddenly to her feet and confronting the old lady's mildly-astonished gaze, ”isn't there anything we can do to stop him? What is it? This poker and whisky are ruining him body and soul. Is the whisky the result of his losses? Or is the madness for a gamble the result of the liquor?”

”Neither the one--nor the other, my dear. It is--Lablache.”

The older woman bent over her darning, and the needle pa.s.sed, rippling, round a ”potato” in the sock which was in her lap. Her eyes were studiously fixed upon the work.

”Lablache--Lablache! It is always Lablache, whichever way I turn.

Gee--but the whole country reeks of him. I tell you right here, aunt, that man's worse than scurvy in our ranching world. Everybody and everything in Foss River seems to be in his grip.”

”Excepting a certain young woman who refuses to be ensnared.”

The words were spoken quite casually. But Jacky started. Their meaning was driven straight home. She looked down upon the bent, gray head as if trying to penetrate to the thought that was pa.s.sing within. There was a moment's impressive silence. The clock ticked loudly in the silence of the room. A light wind was whistling rather shrilly outside, round the angles of the house.

”Go on, auntie,” said the girl, slowly. ”You haven't said enough--yet. I guess you're thinking mighty--deeply.”

Mrs. Abbot looked up from her work. She was smiling, but behind that smile there was a strange gravity in the expression of her eyes.

”There is nothing more to say at present.” Then she added, in a tone from which all seriousness had vanished, ”Hasn't Lablache ever asked you to marry him?”

A light was beginning to dawn upon the girl.

”Yes--why?”

”I thought so.” It was now Mrs. Abbot's turn to rise and confront her companion. And she did so with the calm manner of one who is a.s.sured that what she is about to say cannot be refuted. Her kindly face had lost nothing of its sweet expression, only there was something in it which seemed to be asking a mute question, whilst her words conveyed the statement of a case as she knew it. ”You dear, foolish people. Can you not see what is going on before your very eyes, or must a stupid old woman like myself explain what is patent to the veriest fool in the settlement? Lablache is the source of your uncle's trouble, and, incidentally, you are the incentive. I have watched--I have little else to do in Foss River--you all for years past, and there is little that I could not tell you about any of you, as far as the world sees you.

Lablache has been a source of a world of thought to me. The business side of him is patent to everybody. He is hard, flinty, tyrannical--even unscrupulous. I am telling you nothing new, I know. But there is another side to his character which some of you seem to ignore. He is capable of strong pa.s.sions--ay, very strong pa.s.sions. He has conceived a pa.s.sion for you. I will call it by no other name in such an unholy brute as Lablache. He wishes to marry _you--he means to marry you_.”

The silver-haired old lady had worked herself up to an unusual vehemence. She paused after accentuating her last words. Jacky, taking advantage of the break, dropped in a question.

”But--how does this affect my uncle?”

”Aunt” Margaret sniffed disdainfully and resettled the gla.s.ses which, in the agitation of the moment, had slipped from her nose.

”Of course it affects your uncle,” she continued more quietly. ”Now listen and I will explain.” Once more these two seated themselves and ”Aunt” Margaret again plunged into her story.

”Sometimes I catch myself speculating as to how it comes about that you have inspired this pa.s.sion in such a man as Lablache,” she began, glancing into the somberly beautiful face beside her. ”I should have expected that ma.s.s of flesh and money--he always reminds me of a jelly-fish, my dear--ugh!--to have wished to take to himself one of your gaudy b.u.t.terflies from New York or London for a wife; not a simple child of the prairie who is more than half a wild--wild savage.” She smiled lovingly into the girl's face. ”You see these coa.r.s.e money-grubbers always prefer their pills well gilded, and, as a rule, their matrimonial pills need a lot of gilding to bring them up to the standard of what they think a wife should be. However, it was not long before it became plain to me that he wished to marry you. He may be a master of finance; he may disguise his feelings--if he has any--in business, so that the shrewdest observer can discover no vulnerable point in his armor of dissimulation. But when it comes to matters pertaining to--to--love--quite the wrong word in his case, my dear--these men are as babes; worse, they are fools. When Lablache makes up his mind to a purpose he generally accomplishes his end--”

”In business,” suggested Jacky, moodily.

”Just so--in business, my dear. In matters matrimonial it may be different. But I doubt his failure in that,” went on Mrs. Abbot, with a decided snap of her expressive mouth. ”He will try by fair means or foul, and, if I know anything of him, he will never relinquish his purpose. He asked you to marry him--and of course you refused, quite natural and right. He will not risk another refusal from you--these people consider themselves very sensitive, my dear--so he will attempt to accomplish his end by other means--means much more congenial to him, the--the beast. There now, I've said it, my dear. The doctor tells me that he is quite the most skilful player at poker that he has ever come across.”

”I guess that's so,” said the girl, with a dark, ironical smile.

”And that his luck is phenomenal,” the old lady went on, without appearing to notice the interruption. ”Very well. Your uncle, the old fool--excuse me, my dear--has done nothing but gamble all his life. The doctor says that he believes John has never been known to win more than about once in a month's play, no matter with whom he plays. You know--we all know--that for years he has been in the habit of raising loans from this monumental cuttle-fish to settle his losses. And you can trust that individual to see that these loans are well secured. John Allandale is reputed very rich, but the doctor a.s.sures me that were Lablache to foreclose his mortgages a very, very big slice of your uncle's worldly goods would be taken to meet his debts.

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