Part 3 (2/2)
Perhaps its particular appeal lay in her eyes. They seemed to be quite marvelously deep and clear, so darkly gray that they looked black in certain lights, and they were so shadowed and pensive that sometimes they gave the image of actual sadness. For all the isolation of her home she was no stranger to romance; but the romance that was to be seen, like a gentleness, in her face was that of the great, shadowed forest in which she dwelt.
Pensive, wistful, enthralled in a dreamy sadness,--what could be nearer the tone and pitch of the northern forest itself? There might have been also depths of latent pa.s.sion such as is known to all who live the full, strong life of the woods. The lines were soft about her lips and eyes, indicating a marked sweetness and tenderness of nature; but these traits did not in the least deny her parentage. No one but the woodsman knows how gentle, how hospitably tender, the forest may be at times.
She had fine, dark straight brows that served to darken her eyes, dark brown hair waving enough to soften every line of her face, a girlish throat and a red mouth surprisingly tender and childish. As might have been expected her garb was neither rich nor smart, but it was pretty and well made and evidently fitted for her life: a loose ”middy,” blue skirt, woolen stockings and rather solid little boots.
As she pa.s.sed the door of the hotel one of the younger men who had been lounging about the stove strode out and accosted her. She half-turned, recognized his face in the lamplight, and frankly recoiled.
She had been lost in dreams before, vaguely pensive, for Beatrice had been watching the darkness overspread and encompa.s.s the dark fringe of the spruce forest that enclosed the town. Now, because she recognized the man and knew his type--born of the wild places even as herself, but a b.a.s.t.a.r.d breed--the tender, wistful half-smile sped from her childish mouth and her eyes grew alert and widened as if with actual fear. She halted, evidently in doubt as to her course.
”Going home?” the man asked. ”I'm going up to see your pop, and I'll see you there, if you don't mind.”
Ray Brent's voice had an undeniable ring of power. It was deeply ba.s.s, evidently the voice of a pa.s.sionate, reckless, brutal man. The covetous caress of his thick hand upon her arm indicated that he was wholly sure of himself in regard to her.
She stared with growing apprehension into his even-featured, not unhandsome face. Evidently she found it hard to meet his eyes,--eyes wholly lacking in humor and kindliness, but unquestionably vivid and compelling under his heavy, dark brows. ”I'm going home,” she told him at last. ”I guess, if you're going up to see Pop, you can walk along too.”
The man fell in beside her, his powerful frame overshadowing hers. It was plain at once that the manner of her consent did not in the least disturb him. ”You're just letting me because I'm going up there anyway, eh?” he asked. ”I'll walk along further than that with you before I'm done.”
The girl paused, as if in appeal. ”Ray, we've thrashed that out long ago,” she responded. ”I wish you wouldn't keep talking about it. If you want to walk with me--”
”All right, but you'll be changing your mind one of these days.” Ray's voice rang in the silence, indicating utter indifference to the fact that many of the loungers on the street were listening to the little scene. ”I've never seen anything I wanted yet that I didn't get--and I want you. Why don't you believe what your pop says about me? He thinks Ray Brent is the goods.”
”I'm not going to talk about it any more. I've already given you my answer--twenty times.”
The man talked on, but the girl walked with lifted chin, apparently not hearing. They followed the board sidewalk into the shadows, finally turning in at a ramshackle, three-room house that was perched on the hillside almost at the end of the street at the outer limits of the village.
The girl turned to go in, but the man held fast to her arm. ”Wait just a minute, Bee,” he urged. ”I've got one thing more to say to you.”
The girl looked into his face, now faintly illumined by the full moon that was rising, incredibly large and white, above the dark line of the spruce tops. For all the regularity of his rather handsome features, his was never an attractive face to her, even in first, susceptible girlhood; and in the moonlight it suddenly filled her with dread. Ray Brent was a dangerous type: imperious willed, slave to his most degenerate instincts, reckless, as free from moral restraint as the most savage creatures that roamed his native wilds. Now his facial lines appeared noticeably deep, dark like scars, and curious little flakes of iniquitous fire danced in his sunken eyes.
”Just one minute, Bee,” he went on, wholly rapt in his own, devouring desires. The dark pa.s.sions of the man, always just under the skin, seemed to be getting out of bounds. ”When I want something, I don't know how to quit till I get it. It's part of my nature. Your pop knows that--and that's why he's made me his pardner in a big deal.”
”If my father wants men like you--for his pardners, I can't speak for his judgment.”
”Wait just a minute. He's told me--and I know he's told you too--that I'd suit him all right for a son-in-law. He and I agree on that. And this country ain't like the places you read about in your story books--it's a man's country. Oh, I know you well enough. It's time you got down to bra.s.s tacks. If you're going to be a northern woman, you've got to be content with the kind of men that grow up here. Up here, the best man wins, the hardest, strongest man. That's why I'm going to win you.”
Because he was secretly attacking her dreams, the dearest part of her being, she felt the first surge of rising anger.
”You're not the best man here,” she told him, straightening. ”If you were, I'd move out. You may be the strongest in your body, and certainly the hardest, going further to get your own way--but a real man would break you in two in a minute. Some one more than a brute to beat horses to death and jump claims. I'm going in now. Please take away your hand.”
”One thing more. This is the North. We do things in a man's way up here--not a story-book way. The strong man gets what he wants--and I want you. And I'll get you, too--just like I get this kiss.”
He suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed her toward him. A powerful man; she was wholly helpless in his grasp. His arms went about her and he pressed his lips to hers--three times. Then he released her, his eyes glowing like red coals.
But she was a northern girl, trained to self-defense. As he freed her, her strong, slender arm swung out and up--with really startling force.
Her half-closed hand struck with a sharp, drawing motion across his lips, a blow that extinguished his laughter as the wind extinguishes a match-blaze.
”You little--devil!”
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