Part 18 (2/2)

No! there was nothing for it but to stay on as an old friend and watchdog, responsible, at least--if Elizabeth would have none of his counsels--to her mother and kinsfolk at home, who had so clearly approved his advances in the winter, and would certainly blame Elizabeth, on her return, for the fact that his long journey had been fruitless. He magnanimously resolved that Lady Merton should not be blamed if he could help it, by anyone except himself. And he had no intention at all of playing the rejected lover. The proud, well-born, fastidious Englishman stiffened as he walked. It was wounding to his self-love to stay where he was; since it was quite plain that Elizabeth could do without him, and would not regret his departure; but it was no less wounding to be dismissed, as it were, by Anderson. He would not be dismissed; he would hold his own. He too would go with them to Vancouver; and not till they were safely in charge of the Lieutenant-Governor at Victoria, would he desert his post.

As to any further communication to Elizabeth, he realised that the hints into which he had been so far betrayed had profited neither himself nor her. She had resented them, and it was most unlikely that she would ask him for any further explanations; and that being so he had better henceforward hold his peace. Unless of course any further annoyance were threatened.

The hotel cart going down to Laggan for supplies at midday brought Anderson his answer:

”DEAR MR. ANDERSON--Your letter gave me great concern. I deeply sympathise with your situation. As far as I am concerned, I must necessarily look at the matter entirely from the point of view of my fellow-travellers. Lady Merton must not be distressed or molested. So long, however, as this is secured, I shall not feel myself at liberty to reveal a private matter which has accidentally come to my knowledge. I understand, of course, that your father will not attempt any further communication with me, and I propose to treat the interview as though it had not happened.

”I will give Lady Merton your message. It seems to me doubtful whether she will be ready for excursions next week.

But you are no doubt aware that the hotel makes what are apparently very excellent and complete arrangements for such things. I am sure Lady Merton would be sorry to give you avoidable trouble. However, we shall see you to-morrow, and shall of course be very glad of your counsels.

”Yours faithfully,

”ARTHUR MANDEVILLE DELAINE.”

Anderson's fair skin flushed scarlet as he read this letter. He thrust it into his pocket and continued to pace up and down in the patch of half-cleared ground at the back of the Ginnells' house. He perfectly understood that Delaine's letter was meant to warn him not to be too officious in Lady Merton's service. ”Don't suppose yourself indispensable--and don't at any time forget your undesirable antecedents, and compromising situation. On those conditions, I hold my tongue.”

”Pompous a.s.s!” Anderson found it a hard task to keep his own pride in check. It was of a different variety from Delaine's, but not a whit less clamorous. Yet for Lady Merton's sake it was desirable, perhaps imperative, that he should keep on civil terms with this member of her party. A hot impulse swept through him to tell her everything, to have done with secrecy. But he stifled it. What right had he to intrude his personal history upon her?--least of all this ugly and unsavoury development of it? Pride spoke again, and self-respect. If it humiliated him to feel himself in Delaine's power, he must bear it. The only other alternatives were either to cut himself off at once from his English friends--that, of course, was what Delaine wished--or to appeal to Lady Merton's sympathy and pity. Well, he would do neither--and Delaine might go hang!

Mrs. Ginnell, with her ap.r.o.n over her head to s.h.i.+eld her from a blazing sun, appeared at the corner of the house.

”You're wanted, sir!” Her tone was sulky.

”Anything wrong?” Anderson turned apprehensively.

”Nothing more than 'is temper, sir. He won't let yer rest, do what you will for 'im.”

Anderson went into the house. His father was sitting up in bed. Mrs.

Ginnell had been endeavouring during the past hour to make her patient clean and comfortable, and to tidy his room; but had been at last obliged to desist, owing to the mixture of ill-humour and bad language with which he a.s.sailed her.

”Can I do anything for you?” Anderson inquired, standing beside him.

”Get me out of this blasted hole as soon as possible! That's about all you can do! I've told that woman to get me my things, and help me into the other room--but she's in your pay, I suppose. She won't do anything I tell her, drat her!”

”The doctor left orders you were to keep quiet to-day.”

McEwen vowed he would do nothing of the kind. He had no time to be lolling in bed like a fine lady. He had business to do, and must get home.

”If you get up, with this fever on you, and the leg in that state, you will have blood-poisoning,” said Anderson quietly, ”which will either kill you or detain you here for weeks. You say you want to talk business with me. Well, here I am. In an hour's time I must go to Calgary for an appointment. Suppose you take this opportunity.”

McEwen stared at his son. His blue eyes, frowning in their wrinkled sockets, gave little or no index, however, to the mind behind them. The straggling white locks falling round his blotched and feverish face caught Anderson's attention. Looking back thirty years he could remember his father vividly--a handsome man, solidly built, with a shock of fair hair. As a little lad he had been proud to sit high-perched beside him on the wagon which in summer drove them, every other Sunday, to a meeting-house fifteen miles away. He could see his mother at the back of the wagon with the little girls, her grey alpaca dress and cotton gloves, her patient look. His throat swelled. Nor was the pang of intolerable pity for his mother only. Deep in the melancholy of his nature and strengthened by that hateful tie of blood from which he could not escape, was a bitter, silent compa.s.sion for this outcast also. All the machinery of life set in motion and maintaining itself in the clash of circ.u.mstance for seventy years to produce _this_, at the end! Dismal questionings ran through his mind. Ought he to have acted as he had done seventeen years before? How would his mother have judged him? Was he not in some small degree responsible?

Meanwhile his father began to talk fast and querulously, with plentiful oaths from time to time, and using a local miner's slang which was not always intelligible to Anderson. It seemed it was a question of an old silver mine on a mountainside in Idaho, deserted some ten years before when the river gravels had been exhausted, and now to be reopened, like many others in the same neighbourhood, with improved methods and machinery, tunnelling instead of was.h.i.+ng. Silver enough to pave Montreal! Ten thousand dollars for plant, five thousand for the claim, and the thing was done.

He became incoherently eloquent, spoke of the ease and rapidity with which the thing could be resold to a syndicate at an enormous profit, should his ”pardners” and he not care to develop it themselves. If George would find the money--why, George should make his fortune, like the rest, though he had behaved so scurvily all these years.

Anderson watched the speaker intently. Presently he began to put questions--close, technical questions. His father's eyes--till then eager and greedy--began to flicker. Anderson perceived an unwelcome surprise--annoyance--

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